The defining moment of President Trump's heralded visit to the American-Arab-Islamic Summit in Saudi Arabia may not have been the spectacular reception accorded him by King Salman, the Saudi monarch, or his Riyadh speech before about 50 Muslim states calling for a Muslim-led war against Islamic terrorism.

The defining moment may have been at a May 21 bilateral meeting between Trump and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Sisi complimented Trump on his "unique personality that is capable of doing the impossible."

True to form, Trump breezily replied, "I agree." 

Trump, in his turn, complimented Sisi on his shoes.

"Love your shoes.  Boy, those shoes.  Man...," Trump effused.

Calling Sisi "my friend," Trump afterwards committed to visiting Egypt again "very soon."  

Cynics were quick to pounce.  One derisively posted that Trump "is so far more eloquent that [sic] Obama."  Another predicted that "his mastery of our language will be noted with [sic] presidential historian [sic] for eons to come."

They miss the point.  The unwashed masses love Trump precisely because he doesn't speak, sound, or prevaricate like the average politician.

When Trump burst on the national scene, the public instantly noted his "otherness": authentic, straight-talking, transparent, warts and all.  

His rhetoric was a breath of fresh air in the soporific, stilted drivel, purposed not to enlighten, but to obfuscate, hovering fog-like over the political arena.

Trump's adversaries' endgame is to win by any means necessary and to show their true colors when they get in.  No one can accuse Trump of obfuscation. 

Contrary to what his detractors pretend, Trump's alleged outsized ego displays a humbleness of spirit.  In a leadership context, true humility is the willingness to assess the big picture, to put the general welfare first, propelled by the backbone and character necessary to accomplish the promised ends.

True humility isn't limp.  True humility demands courage, restraint, intellectual honesty, patience, good judgment, and the employ of logical means to logical ends.

Backbone and character are what separates Trump from the herd.  He is his own man.  Beholden to no one, he cares little about what others think.  Unpretentious to a fault, he exposes finger-to-the-wind politicos for the pretenders they are.  Unlike them, with Trump, there is a "there" there.

One intuits that the president is equally at ease chatting about the Yankees with a New York ironworker as he is conferring with President Sisi about counter-terrorism.

The left despise him for the same reasons his constituency loves him: steadfast in the face of withering criticism; unbowed by caricatures, lies, innuendo, and leaks.  His Twitter posts give voice to millions of ordinary Americans who had been cowed into silence.  

While the permanent ruling class writhes in paroxysms of Trump Derangement Syndrome, Trump blithely continues being Trump.

Just as seeming insignificant gestures like a cheery "good morning" to a stranger on an elevator or holding the door for someone make the world appear a better place, so too will Trump drain the swamp, grow the economy, and make America great again, one tweet, one inconvenient truth spoken to power, one pact, one handshake, one compliment about a king's shoes (occasionally offset by a Trumpian faux pas) at a time.