FOR those who recall the way candidate Trump followed Hillary Clinton around the stage during the second presidential debate, the sight of Nancy Pelosi, Democrat Speaker of the House, looming over “45” while he delivered the State of the Union address was the most impressive turning of the tables since David demonstrated his slingshot skills to Goliath.

Over the course of his one hour plus speech, Ms Pelosi made her feelings about the President and his policies plain. On shaking hands at the end, she looked as if she was gripping fish guts rather than the presidential mitt. As for that oh-so-sarky clapping, only Donald Tusk watching Boris Johnson taking his special Brexiteer place in hell could have looked more disdainful.

There were other moments that made it worth catching the President’s second SOTU, among them Congress uniting to sing happy birthday to one of the guests, Judah Samet, the Holocaust survivor who escaped the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting last year; and the newly elected Democratic Congresswomen, dressed in US suffragette white, standing up to cheer themselves after the president spoke of his success at getting more women into jobs. “You weren’t supposed to do that!” he joked.

Overall, this was a SOTU worth noting for the way it showed where the Trump presidency is heading, how it is changing, and the clear limits to that change.

Since misjudging the tone so badly in his inaugural address, Mr Trump has had several occasions in which to try out presidential style for size. On the evidence of Tuesday, he still struggles with it. This is not a presidency that will ever be measured in landmark speeches. This is the Twitter President, the casual, off the cuff, commander-in-chief. At the SOTU he was merely on what passes, in his case, for better behaviour. Like the town bully going to church on a Sunday, he will dress up and play nice, then go straight back to scrapping afterwards, forgetting all his fine words about bipartisanship.

On the matters most dear to him, he switched between pulling his punches and taking sly digs. There was the same determination to build a wall between the US and Mexico. “Walls work and walls save lives,” said the man clearly unacquainted with the post-war history of Berlin. While there was no mention of declaring a state of emergency to get the money to pay for the wall, it could yet come to that. More likely, having made it clear to his base who he blames for not building the “big, beautiful wall” he promised, he will have to scale down his ambitions.

Similarly, his words on the need for politicians to unite for the sake of country sounded like a joke coming from one of the most divisive presidents in modern American history.

Predictably enough, he took a swipe at “ridiculous partisan investigations” that he said were endangering the “economic miracle” taking place in the US, as if there had to be a choice made between one and the other. According to this President, there is. He then doubled down on the threat, saying that if there was going to be peace and legislation, there could not be be war and investigation. “It just doesn’t work that way,” he said ominously.

Pointing to profits and stock market surges has long been Mr Trump’s answer to most criticism, and it is clear how heavily dependent he will be on the continued health of the economy to make it back in 2020. His trade war with China now looks like even more of an all-stakes gamble, and one from which we could all lose.

The announcement of a meeting with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam at the end of the month is part of his attempt to persuade America and the world to take a “bigger picture” look at his Presidency. “If I had not been elected president of the United States,” he told Congress, “we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea.” Cue a thousand undergraduate essays and opinion pieces on that one.

Again, though, one can see how continued peace with North Korea, or rather the absence of war, leaves Mr Trump in pole position for 2020. Given what is awaiting him at home, the end game of the Mueller investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 poll, Mr Trump can be expected to do a fair bit of travelling in the coming months, including that stop in London in December for the Nato summit.

Although Mr Trump is struggling to leave his old ways behind, the fact that he is trying, even a little, says a lot about how America is changing. We have become so used to believing that the country is split down the middle into Trump and anti-Trump camps, it has been difficult to appreciate that the ground on which the parties stand is moving.

This could be seen most recently in the midterm elections, which saw a record number of women elected to the House of Representatives, women voters increasingly backing women Democrats, and the suburbs turning away from the Republicans.

The campaigns for 2020 will have to drill deep to find and motivate voters. It will not be the straight choice, hate her/love him, love her/hate him, knockabout fight of 2016 all over again.

We can already see the Democrats getting ready for this new kind of close quarters, district by district, electoral combat. The field of candidates looks to be wider than ever, which is already a vast improvement on 2016 and the coronation of Hillary. Given the divisions between left and centrist Democrats, having too much choice may not necessarily be a blessing. But the fact there are so many credible candidates emerging suggests there is plenty of life left in the old Democratic dog yet.

Mr Trump gives every impression of relishing the battle to come. We shall see. The story of the midterms, and of Tuesday night, as that impromptu demonstration by women lawmakers showed, is that women are changing their minds about the President, and are increasingly prepared to take him on. Fortune, and fair headlines, favour the bold female.

Not before time, Mr Trump has a fight on his hands.