Donald Trump
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016, in Wilmington, N.C.
(Evan Vucci, The Associated Press)
CLEVELAND, Ohio - So much for that big Donald Trump reset.
The New York businessman was on his best behavior Monday during a big speech on the economy in Detroit, and for a while there he looked like a normal candidate for president.
The Republican nominee's goal? Move past a damaging stretch in which he escalated a public feud with the Muslim parents of a fallen U.S. Army captain and spitefully - though temporarily - withheld endorsements from House Speaker Paul Ryan and other GOP all-stars.
It took 24 hours to remember that, for Trump, there is no normal.
Trump's latest controversy is a biggie. Speaking at a rally Tuesday in Wilmington, N.C., he sounded alarm bells to gun rights advocates worried that a Hillary Clinton presidency would result in liberal Supreme Court justices and a threat to the Second Amendment.
"If [Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks," Trump told his audience. "Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is - I don't know."
Trump's remarks, parsed instantly on social media, were interpreted by many as a call for violence against Clinton or whichever justices she might nominate for the high court.
"This is simple - what Trump is saying is dangerous," Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook said in a statement emailed to reporters soon after the event. "A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way."
Trump sent Jason Miller, a senior communications adviser, to bail him out of the jam.
"It's called the power of unification - 2nd Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power," Miller said in a campaign email that lashed out at "dishonest media" in the subject line. "And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won't be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump."
Essentially, Miller is saying Trump was urging Second Amendment defenders to show their displeasure with their votes this fall - not with their guns. But that's not what Trump said in Wilmington. His comment sounded as if it were conditional on Clinton winning - and on the notion that only Second Amendment supporters could stop her at that point.
In politics these are called dog whistles. You speak vaguely enough to allow plausible deniability later on, but you put something out there that people will hear a certain way. Those particularly devoted might hear it as a call to action. If you watch the video replay of Trump's speech, you can see a bearded gentleman in a red polo shirt react to the "Second Amendment people" line. Whatever Trump's handlers say he meant, this man knew the potency of that remark.
Here's the thing. Trump has said many outrageous things in this campaign. Any benefit of the doubt you might extend to a politician who misspeaks is near its expiration date - and not just with journalists, whose job it is to document this type of rhetoric. Many Republicans who have gritted their teeth and issued half-hearted endorsements are losing patience with Trump.
For Trump, there is no reset button. Only rinse and repeat.