I agree with you that policy is more important than narrative. No doubt about it. The thing is, there is no policy. He literally has not passed a single major piece of legislation in the last seven months, and all his executive orders are just bullshit paper tigers that fall to pieces when checked by the judicial branch.
Also, a fucking white supremacist terrorist murdered an American and injured over a dozen others. It is now an incontestable fact that these terrorists feel emboldened by Trump, and they interpreted his reaction as a wink and nod of approval. He then gave them cover by drawing false equivalence between Nazis and the protesters that were there specifically to stop Nazis.