Friday, September 1, 2017

Trump Erodes His Own Base


I wish I were done with politics, but politics is not done with me. Yet I stand at an impass. There is no human being on earth—and probbably none anywhere more celestial, either—who can convince me that Donald Trump is an honest man worthy of my trust. At the same time, I know I will never be able to convince anyone who so believes otherwise. So I have to let Trump do the convincing. It should be easy. All anyone has to do is pay attention. He spreads alternate facts without bothering to check them; the most recent one is the story thyat Black Jack Pershing had 49 Muslim terrorists shot with bullets dipped in pig's blood. A 1927 newspaper article related that Pershing did sprinkle pig's blood on captured terror suspects, then let them go, but even that story is legend and not fact. But Trump adopted the embellished story he took from the internet as his own, as the truth, and I am certain he believes it. He has insulted Gold Star families, major celebrities, and even fellow Republicans without impunity. Point by point, his base of support has slowly dropped to 34%. Two-thirds of Americans no longer support him or never did, yet he remains President. Uncharacteristically, the American people are rejecting Trump as their trusted leader despite it being less than a year since he took office, and despite the fact that the US economy is booming. To many, Donald Trump is best described as an embarrassment. Now, Charlottesville and his subsequent rants. Trump declared himself a racist within the first minute of his candidacy for President. Throughout his campaign his rhetoric was outrageous and inflammatory. People loved it; they saw him as speaking from the heart instead of what he was really doing: say whatever he thought would win his base and then what would keep them. He won the election in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by three million. He distorts and embellishes the truth and out and out lies. Then he convinces himself the lies are the truth and the truth is made up of alternate facts. He really believes that he won the Electoral College in a landslide. He really believes he won the popular vote. He really believes that the crowds at his Innaugural were the largest in history. He probably believes that his polling numbers are all lies manufactured by the media to embarrass him. When he holds a rally, he believes that the people who come to see him represent the majority of Americans while protesters outside are radicals for hire. And on and on—he even had a great number of us convinced that Mexico was going to pay for his “Wall.” Now, after months of promising, Trump is threatening to close the government if We The People don't finance the construction of the Wall. Every promise made is falling apart; every lie told is coming to roost, yet all he seems willing to do is tweet incessantly and hold campaign rallies three plus years before the 2020 campaign, aimed at that dwindling base. On Friday, the same day Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas, the President pardoned Joe Arpaio, the Phoenix, Arizona, sheriff convicted of violating a federal court order to stop random profiling of Hispanics who might be illegal because of how they look regardless of their actual status. The pardon is just another proof of where Trump stands, and with whom he stands shoulder to shoulder. I guess the rest of us just don't count.

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