I better be quick about writing this because the underlying facts probably have a short shelf life. I learn that Mr. Trump now is expressing support for NATO [hat tip Noah Milman], seems to be taking a seemingly less extremist stance stance regarding China, and seems to be distancing himself from his alt-right advisor, Steve Bannon [paywall probably applies]. Are these indications of a sometimes-discussed “pivot” toward more responsible governance?

Maybe….but we have to decide what kind of pivot we’re talking about.

Then there’s the personal pivot. This is personal change resulting from an honest self-assessment.  It can come quickly, as in a road to Damascus conversion experience. Or it can come gradually, and observable only long after the pivoting began. I don’t see any fish scales falling from Mr. Trump’s eyes, and if he is on the painful, gradual road to a personal reevaluation, we won’t know for at least a few years.

There’s the institutional pivot. This doesn’t preclude a personal change, but it relies on the sets of incentives and constraints that work on the presidency. As I have tried to argue before,

But the argument that Mr. Trump will grow into the presidency doesn’t rely only on the proposition that he’ll become a better person. It also relies on the claim that our system of checks and balances might actually work and that the federal bureaucracy will do what bureaucracies do and somehow condition what Mr. Trump can accomplish.

I’d add other factors to “checks and balances’ and “federal bureaucracy”: federalism, civil society, the press, individual acts of resistance. In this second sense, it’s possible we’re about to see a pivot.

However and as with the first sense, we probably won’t really know it’s a true pivot for several years. One reason among many I distrust Mr. Trump is that he seems to change his mind on a whim. Pivoting hither and yon from one day to the next isn’t the type of pivot I’m hoping for.

We also need to keep perspective. I think it’s a good thing that Mr. Trump seems to be (this week) distancing himself from Mr. Bannon. But he shouldn’t have hired him in the first place. He should have laughed away the suggestion when it was made. And “distancing himself from” isn’t the same as firing.

There’s finally the disturbing point that we are–or at least I am–looking for any sign of change and clinging to it, hoping it’s change for real or at least contenting ourselves that it’s not quite as bad at he moment as it seemed and may again seem at other times. Maybe the king won’t show up to parliament in his underwear. Maybe the emperor will put on some clothes for once. I suppose it’s kind of like dreading the moment an abuser comes home only to be relieved that tonight he’s in a good mood.