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"The best bullies are people who are brilliant at reading your weaknesses and exploiting them," Gladwell said. "When (Trump) makes fun of the other candidates, it's not some bad crude insult. It's actually an insult that cuts into the quick of who they are."

So when he called Jeb Bush "low energy," the son and brother of former presidents suddenly seemed to become more low-energy in public and probably in his self-perceptions, too -- right up to his famously sad request to a small New Hampshire audience, "Please clap."

We should have seen this coming. Trump loves professional wrestling. He's co-sponsored "Wrestlemania" events and even performed, playing -- who else? -- himself.

And it works for the same reason that the Wharton-educated billionaire often talks like a lunch bucket-carrying blue collar worker from Queens. When he recently said, "I love the poorly educated," he sounded like he meant it.

Of course, Bush, Rubio and Cruz have tried belatedly to return fire. But the insult is not a game for the squeamish or ill-prepared. Trump's skills come from decades of his strategic obnoxiousness.

That's why, instead of calling Rubio inexperienced, Trump talks about how the Floridian "sweats a lot." When conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt asked Trump in another debate about his overdue promise to release his tax returns, Trump responded by belittling Hewitt's audience ratings.

And when Mitt Romney courageously stood up and denounced Trump as a "phony," "a fraud" and a danger to democracy, Trump pointedly called Romney a "stiff" and a "choke artist" who "failed horribly" in his 2012 election bid "that he should have won."

But Mitt did the right thing. Good people need to speak up against Trump's put-downs.

Otherwise, if he really does insult his way to the White House, brace yourself. Every future presidential debate will sound like Wrestlemania.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.