Donald Trump Wants You To Forget The Awful Things He Said. Don't Let Him.

Donald Trump is not just the front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination. Hes on the verge of becoming its presumptive nominee.

He has won nearly every primary or caucus, including most of the contests on Tuesday. He has money, loyal supporters and a commanding lead in the national polls. The GOP establishment is busy thinking up ways to keep Trump from getting the majority of delegates hed need to clinch the nomination and then, at this summers convention in Cleveland, putting forward another candidate as the partys standard bearer. Its not out of the question they could succeed. Its also not very likely.

Nobody knows that better than Trump. It was evident on Tuesday night, when he used an unconventional primary night setting -- a press conference, rather than a rally -- to offer a preview of his intended strategy for the general election. It will include more attacks on Hillary Clinton, and a sharper focus on the supposed failures of President Barack Obama over the last eight years. But Trump will also try to reposition himself -- to disown, or at least downplay, the most outrageous and offensive statements he made during the general election.

The big question is whether the American people will let Trump get away with it.

Trump has been signaling his intentions for a while now. Last summer, he told CNN's Anderson Cooper that hed change his tone as he got closer to becoming president. In early February, after using an anatomical epithet during a rally, Trump assured NBCs Lester Holt that he understood such behavior wasnt appropriate for the potential leader of the free world -- and that as president, or a serious candidate for president, he would act differently.

On Tuesday night, Trump went further. He presented himself as a unifier -- not just of groups within the Republican Party, but of different racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. population. He said that he was disavowing the support of David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan, making firmer statements than he did when asked about them by CNNs Jake Tapper last Sunday.

Trump's shift toward inclusiveness, team effort and unity was vitally important He has to build a Reagan like inclusiveness to win this fall

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Trump's shift toward inclusiveness, team effort and unity was vitally important He has to build a Reagan like inclusiveness to win this fall
Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) March 2, 2016

On specific policy issues, he reiterated something hes said previously but didnt highlight: that some of his most outlandish proposals, including building a wall and deporting the 11 million undocumented people here already, are actually opening bids and up for negotiation.

It's hard to be certain, but this sure looks like Trump is signaling that some of his behavior has been an act -- an effort to win the Republican primary, or just to get some attention. He's implying that, deep down, he doesnt believe all the awful things hes been saying.

But even if that were true, it wouldn't change the fact that Trump has lent respectability to some pretty offensive views -- like the idea that it would be appropriate to exclude all Muslims from the U.S., or that the immigrants coming from Mexico were mostly rapists and criminals. Hes made threats against freedom of the press -- and, depending on how you interpret his taunts at rallies, hes threatened the press itself.

Hes acted like a bully and condoned, if not encouraged, his supporters when theyve done the same. Few moments from this campaign were as chilling as Trumps response to news, last August, that some of his fans beat up a homeless Latino man in Boston. While acknowledging that assaulting a defenseless person on the streets would be a shame, Trump added that his supporters are very passionate. They love this country.

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Trumps willingness to exploit such prejudices hasn't kept hundreds of thousands of Republican primary voters from backing him. Come November, well learn whether the rest of the American public feels the same way.

Editor's note: Donald Trump is a serial liar , rampant xenophobe , racist , misogynist, birther and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims -- 1.6 billion members of an entire religion -- from entering the U.S.