“Is there a way for him to earn the respect of the electorate ”
which part of the electorate? The vast majority knew he was unhinged. There are very very few people who think comments like “They say a wall is medieval, well so is a wheel. A wheel is older than a wall…The wheel is older than the wall, you know that? There are some things that work. You know what? A wheel works and a wall works” or ” “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.” are normal comments
Some voted against him because of that.
Some voted for him because of that.
some voted for him in spite of that either because they felt he was better than the alternative overall, or for some narrow specific reason like getting conservative judges
Some voted for him because they hoped he would change (why they thought a man in his 70’s who had been known to be unhinged for years is beyond me)
“& save his presidency?”
Hard to know
Group one above will vote against him again, group 2 will vote for him . group 3 will ( probably) vote for him.
Group 4 is hard to understand. On the one hand you’d think they might finally realize that he wont change, on the other hand if anybody ever expected anything different from this President . They are illogical enough to still hope that may be NOW he will change.