The Gray Swan Theory of Trump

If this theory is right, then in the fall campaign Trump would benefit more from economic jitters — stock market hiccups, a spike in gas prices — than he would from a sudden recession. He would benefit more from another spate of Islamic State beheadings than he would from a terrorist attack that required a major military response, and more from a continuing sense of immigration-driven instability in Europe than from, say, a real confrontation with Vladimir Putin over the Baltics.

.. He would want to campaign amid a persistent mood of instability, anxiety and dislocation, but one that didn’t make people so anxious that they started worrying about all the obvious ways that he might make things worse.