Trump after he wins Ohio and Florida will wrap up the Rethug ticket and from there he'll start moderating as he takes on Hillary. Just like rethug cannot figure out how to stop trump (whatever he does or says), I think democrats will also fail to handle trump.
This election is Donald Trump to lose. He is Obama anti-dote. Folks are tired of Obama measured no drama presidency. They want to have someone a little more carefree. In Trump they see one.
Trump is going nowhere. Even Trump probably knows that; but he is a businessman, and this little circus will make the "Trump" name/brand even more marketable.
The idea that "democrats will also fail to handle trump" is way off. If you look at the Electoral College votes in Obama's 1st victory and his 2nd, you will see that Romney got all the possible redneck votes (South and tinker-toy parts of the Mid-West) but still lost. Those votes make up the best-case scenario for Trump. Except that he is probably worse off than Romney: like Goldwater, even if he wins party's nomination, ultimately he splits his own party in a disastrous way.
This brings us to your earlier comment that once he is nominated, he will shape up ... Won't work. Unlike what happens our Great Country, in the USA the trash that politicians talk is never forgotten. For Trump to win, even if he gets all the redneck votes---and that's not a certainty, given the conflicts in his own party---he would have to win Florida. TV ads that regurgitate his views on "south of the border" (and suchlike) pretty much ensures that won't happen. To keep his rabid supporters he will not be able to back away from his nasty bits, and that's going to make it even easier to hit him on that basis.
And here's another aspect: In terms of grassroots organization of get-them-to-register/get-them-out-to-vote, I can't think of a US president/"aspiring-president" who's done better than Obama. (His "cousin" in Kenya could learn something there.) That is interesting for two reasons:
* Contrary to what one would expect as the norm, Obama maintained his "organization" from the 1st campaign to the next. What is even more unusual is that he has still kept it an plans to do "great" things with it after he leaves office. (The
Washington Post, a few months ago, had a lengthy and very interesting article on this.)
* At some point, Obama will bring all his stuff in support of the Democratic nominee, and it's not chicken-shit. (Not surprisingly, one of the debates between Clinton and Sanders boiled down to who would be truer to Obama's legacy .... who loved Obama the most.)