The sad thing is that Trump has been pickpocketing his base in broad daylight.
125
Only someone who is not working class and blue collar could write a column like this. Clueless, really.
The people who vote for Trump do not want to know or understand very much beyond their own noses. They want a job that pays well enough to get decent shelter, food, clothing, a car, a (big) TV, school for the kids and money to do sports. They do not care about international relations, about our allies, about a trade deficit. The national debt is meaningless to them since they do not directly feel its impact and would need someone else to connect the dots when it finally does. They might like the idea of higher education, if it is affordable, but they can live without it. They do not understand global warming, they do not travel past 50 miles from their homes,they have been taught to be suspicious of science. They are glued to FOX 24/7 as their only source of "news" and they believe what they see, because, after all, it's on TV. If they go to church, they are told to believe both FOX and Trump because if they don't the "elite liberals" will take over and take away what little they have and they do not have the capacity to question any of that. Trump seems uneducated, crude, and simple...like many of them. They see themselves in him. Why would they not like that? Mr. Egan needs to go hang out in a small working class town and have some beers in the bar. Then, maybe, he will understand that his arguments can't work.
119
Elitists just can't resist expressing their contempt for Southerners, and it's not just Trump and his conservatives. I remember a historical article on Woodrow Wilson in the Times several years, referring to his appointees as "southern mediocrities". When revisiting the story a few weeks later, the Times was careful to change the phrase to "southern racists", which was obviously Wilson's real offense in his appointments.
6
“Abraham Lincoln said, ‘No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar,’ and Trump clearly doesn’t have the bandwidth for the magnitude of his mendacity.”
Working memory, for most of us, is a cognitive process that helps us to function in our day to day lives. In Mr. Trump’s case, it is merely an oxymoron.
30
What amazes me is how Trump supporters can’t put love of country over this maniac, over their love for party. This is not about attacking the GOP.
For them he’s an amazing hero who has done so much good for the country. To us he has only caused damage and we hold our breath the boat won’t sink before he’s gone. We also fear the damage that may be permanent or that won’t be known until long after he’s gone. Increasing the military budget 25% is insanity.
They think we’re against him because we’re sore losers. We tolerated Bush for 8 years without this insanity. Compared to Trump Bush is a Lincoln.
82
Dream on..."articles" like the one implying Nikki Haley spent $52,000 on curtains when the Obama administration actually ordered them reinforces to Trump supporters that he is right - the media is hopelessly biased.
17
I'm not optimistic, but I hope the base discovers first hand how awful it is to find one's self without medical care when you need it, or how awful it is to lose your job because Trump's tariffs have backfired, or how awful it is to get sick because of pollutants run amuck. I don't want anyone to suffer...but I can't see any other way supporters might see what is being done to them, unless those supporters start to feel physical pain and suffering.
Even then, I'm doubtful most would attribute their afflictions to Trump or to the GOP who daily states its opinion that *their* pre-existing conditions are the result of *their* lives lived immorally...or *their* right to fair housing doesn't exist because the term "fair housing" is not found in the Constitution...the "base" seems satisfied to carry the cross of responsibility for their poor living conditions, which are properly attributable to the wealthy and powerful taking raw advantage of them...it's not Democrats, it's not Russians, it's not immigrants...it's the GOP that has systematically reduced them to peasants over the past 40+ years.
89
No, it was NOT the status anxiety -- it was Trump's message to the struggling middle-class that gave him an edge over Clinton:
Trump was the first (and only) candidate who told the working class whites that things done to them are NOT okay.
In the decades since 80s both Republicans and Democrats adopted the same narrative -- lost jobs are not a problem because the economy will create other jobs in their stead. People just need to get the new training and they will be working again.
That turned out to be a lie.
In reality, the automation/China was taking away good jobs, and those that came after were not paying nearly as well. Getting training would change nothing -- the economy won't create a good job just because you now qualified! But now you have student debt to pay.
Trump was the first to tell those people the truth -- it's not them being lazy or stupid, the new good jobs they have been promised never existed.
But Hillary was still selling them job training.
And if that alone wasn't enough, Trump also proposed a solution that looked reasonable. Since manufacturing jobs were lost to China and Mexico, Trump will be slamming tariffs till it will become cheaper to manufacture in the US.
Of course, Trump's solution was sub-optimal, not even comparable to Universal Basic Income. But hey -- the person Trump was running against would offer no solution at all.. She would not even acknowledge that there was a problem to solve!
And that's how Trump won the election.
41
A quick comment:
Donald Trump did not win the election. He won the electoral college. It is the flawed system that allowed a loser to win.
132
@mrfreeze6--This has been discussed since at least the 2000 election---but nothing is done. What is the proposal to change the system.
23
As long as Trump's supporters live exclusively in the Fox News bubble, they will continue to believe that he's the best president that the US ever had.
89
I'd be interested to hear how Mr. Egan thinks opinion in his home town has/has not changed.
1
Timothy Egan is a smart guy and a good writer, but, like many reporters who believe that most people will act rationally most of the time, he simply doesn't understand there are millions of Americans who don't act rationally most of the time--or even some of the time.
Trump loyalists will stick with him because, unlike Egan, they don't see his monstrous flaws as flaws: they see them as virtues. They admire his misogyny, they admire his bigotry, they admire his bullying, they admire his mendacity; and what they admire most is they he gets away with all of it.
Trump's loyalists envy his his freedom to treat the country as his toilet bowl, and only wish they could they same.
Like their idol, they cannot be persuaded; they can only be defeated.
150
Once again another clueless analysis trying to understand how Trump got elected. Trump is a symptom. Until you understand what he is a symptom of, you will never understand why this guy sits in the Oval Office. If you still can't grasp why, here is a hint: Forty years of neoliberal policy from the Democrats and trickle-down economics from the Republicans.
If not Trump in the future, another demagogue will come along and replace him, but do not think things will ever go back to the same status quo.
28
I have a theory that the polarization of voters is something that began with the evisceration of the middle class starting back in the 70's. Over time that drove the Left towards more socialist policies like universal health care, free college tuition and guaranteed income. It drove the Right towards racism, nativism and into the arms of demagogues like Trump who promised a return of good blue collar jobs and lost status.
The questions becomes, if they left Trump, where would they go?
22
The days when I never again have to hear about or read about--or ponder what drives--"Trump's base" cannot come too soon.
141
Status anxiety, yea okay, but also mistrust of elites, intellectuals and generally anyone who uses big words and doesn't watch Fox News. One of the ways that pollsters so incorrectly misjudged the electorate in 2016 was good ol' sampling bias. When called on a landline, Trump supporters would just hangup the phone. Pollsters, with their predilection to quantify and use mathematics, are indeed part of an intellectual elite after all. The real tragedy was how the Democratic party condescended to these people in addition to running a candidate that most of them despised.
Hillary Clinton visited Madison, WI once in 2016. And it was a private event. I saw with my own eyes, a bunch of black cars with tinted windows outside of the Gordon Center on W. Dayton St. as all the debt-shackled students walked by on their way to the dorms. Bernie Sanders filled an arena in Madison with bright-eyed optimists, twice. Again, 2018 and 2020 are the Democrats' elections to lose.
41
@C. M. Jones
It was a shame, too. You’re right. I was at that event in Madison. She was energetic, bright, funny, optimistic. Why she chose to run the campaign she did still puzzles me.
20
Perhaps the information that Mr. Egan stated is correct. Maybe there are some Trump supporters who now regret their votes for him and who have finally realized that they have been totally manipulated by an inept demagogue and conman. In my small corner of the Bible Belt though where I am surrounded by those who want to "Make America Great Again," I don't see this at all. If anything, I think that they are sticking more closely to him as things get tougher for him. Most of his supporters whom I know either probably never read or heard the news about what he said about Sessions, and if they did, their response would be that it was "fake news." I think that, when Trump is defeated in 2020, he will claim that voter fraud was the reason for his loss, and his hard-core supporters will totally believe him. Sadly, Trumpism is going nowhere anytime soon. It will decades for Trump's influence to completely wane. As for his hard-core supporters, the best we can hope to do is to contain them. Trump tapped into the deep-seated fears of his supporters, and his supporters are driven by fear in everything they do (religion, guns, merely living their lives). Once again, maybe Timothy Egan is right, but I don't see it.
58
I agree completely. My understanding of the piece is not that all Trumpters have rejected him. Only a number of them have.
Having said that, his election was so close, this would certainly be a disaster for him and his sort. It is important to take into account that the economy is strong, probably too strong. This will not last. And the recession will cost him another 5% support.
Trump probably won’t be with us for very long. But as you say, Triumpism will be here as long as there are baby boomers.
8
I find that Flannery O'Connor and William Faulkner's works are particularly illuminating on this subject.
13
I live down here in the middle of nowhere in Georgia, and I don't think there is any actual understanding of what Trump means to many of the people here. He has become a kind of flag, that represents a victory of some sort. People will let go of a politician, but they will not let go of a victory. He is a genius at maintaining himself as a victory symbol.
64
"Cracking Trump's base" does not mean that former Trumpers will flock to the Democratic standard. Mostly, it will just drive people further into hatred of all politicians and of government in general.
18
@Henry Miller, What appeals to y'all about anarchy?
3
One more thing:
Trump supporters love to think of themselves as 'tough', yet their main motivation is fear. When I occasionally have the opportunity, I ask the Trumpers what they're so afraid of, making it clear that I don't share their fear. It usually prompts a double-take, but not much else in the way of response.
48
@M
No, their main motivations are some combination of pride and self-respect, sufficient of each that they refuse to accept being made helpless dependants on government, something the Left seems always to want for themselves.
It's hard to escape the conclusion that those of the Left are "afraid" to face life on their own without the crutch of government, "afraid" to make their own decisions, and "afraid" of those who have the pride and self-respect not to share their fears.
6
@Henry Miller
Sure, or maybe we’re just more compassionate.
I pulled myself up from nothing, college scholarships, good jobs, good money. I am not a helpless dependent and don’t want that for myself. But I also realize many people don’t have those opportunities and need help. I’m not afraid of you but I do think you’re deluding yourself about what you’ve accomplished by yourself. Roads, schools, libraries, . . . You’ve used government infrastructure your whole life.
So what about those big companies that are the real beneficiaries of big welfare? The ranchers who feel public lands should be leased to them for a pittance?
7
@Henry Miller
Fear of immigrants, fear of secular society, fear of leaving the comfort of their small town rural lifestyle, fear of change, mostly fear of change, fear that requires the carrying of a concealed weapon, fear.
30
My (mostly) male friends in the 55-65 age range are the only people I know who are Trump supporters. Maybe this group feels particularly shoved aside -- who knows. What is interesting is that my friends who are older than 65 are not Trump fans. At all.
58
@LynnCalhoun It’s true. I live in a highly educated senior residence (75 years plus). Out of approximately 200 residents, I would estimate there are less than half a dozen who might consider favoring Trump.
39
@LynnCalhounThe Trump voters that I know in the exact age group that you note have a deep resentment of women professionals and supervisors. I know some of the women they despise and those women are prolematic and as crassly career climbing as many men. But others are not. And if even some women are like some of their male counterparts in looking out only for themselves, how does that translate into voting for Trump? Immaturity, weak thinking, and a strange way of being out of touch with the roots of their negative feelings. Yes, they do feel shoved aside. Too bad that leads to voting for someone who clearly intends to harm the poor, minorities and immigrants and in doing so is also harming the many fragile members of the middle class. The upper middle class is doing just fine though, not just the billionaires.
15
@LynnCalhoun
My dad , he’s 95, was a member of the 23rd Fighter
Group, Flying Tigers, saw his squadron fight the Japanese.
His Commanding Officer was Tex Hill. He sees Trump as
a person who cannot seem to include the ideal of freedom
and honor for all.
My dad has won a presidential citation, his unit,under General Chennault fought against long odds to persevere
against the Japanese.
Do you think Trump makes him fearful?
3
Adorno et al.'s "The Authoritarian Personality" and Milgram's "Obedience to Authority" taught me, over thirty years ago, that there are 30%-40% of the people in so-called advanced industrial societies who a. do not know history or live in historical time; b. cannot follow rational argumentation; c. cannot make a logical argument; and d. can be pushed -- and. despite the apparent oxymoron, all too willingly -- into believing the most blatant lies and then into supporting undemocratic leaders and following them into unimaginable cruelty. I am no snob: University professors and administrators are not immune to these ills, nor are rich people. And nor are those who worship the i-dolls of tech. I am a professional teacher of thirty years, who trained for ten before I began to teach full time (and none of that is any big deal, either). I've published plenty. But ignorance and bigotry (and the defunding of education and its substitution by solipsism-inducing devices and money in politics) are far worse now than when Ronald Reagan became president in 1980. I work every day against the despair born of what I know. But, nonetheless, my despair increases, and I have only one consolation, namely the freedom, increasingly small, of being deemed useless or worse by the society in which I live. Now I am part of the enemy, I am told on all fronts. And while I may be (perhaps foolishly) brave in speaking up, I am more afraid of my own country than I have been in all my 55 years.
105
I agree. We're the same age, and it seems you got the career path I aspired to --- training people to be rational thinkers---and now I struggle daily to find middle class people to discuss this situation with. It seems 90% of the population simply can't understand the poltical and economic climate or don't want to. The 10% like the readers of this paper, don't have enough clout to reach the other 90%.
13
@tapepper
I agree that they can't follow rational argumentation. I remember reading a blog by an evangelical who boasted that he had "refuted" a biology teacher over the subject of evolution. The "refutation" consisted of saying that evolution conflicted with what his pastor said.
In other words, this guy had no idea what "refutation" really meant.
20
@Joe Aug
" 90% of the population simply can't understand the poltical and economic climate"
Considering that the Times badly forecasted the 2016 election, I suppose that it belongs to the 90%
3
Trump is too clueless to realize the so called "dumb southerners," and the "hillbillies" are seen by many as a welcome change from the ivy leaguers which he disses as the elites. He doesn't realize he is insulting his base.
10
I always wondered about the sanity of people who vote against their own best interests. I doubt they will ever come around. Just the same, I also doubt the long term impact of the so-called insurgency -- the identity crew -- will bring prosperity and security. I hope it doesn't escape the NY Times that one group (the Trumps base) has status anxiety -- as they call it -- and the other group also has the same, just call it different things.
12
I don’t see the point in all these articles about trying to understand and change the minds of trumps base. It’s pretty clear that except for the wealthy who wanted to revise the tax code in their favor and corporations who want to pollute and defraud citizens without regulations to hamper them, it was not a vote guided by intellect but by emotion, mostly hatred and fear. Those hatred and fears will never change. It is well proven that they will consistently vote against their self-interest to support those hatreds and fears. Why keep rehashing this over and over?
132
@rs
I totally agree with you. But... we do outnumber them. It is beyond imperative that we register and VOTE. We need the most massive turnout in history to get the GOP’s attention....as we show them the door.
33
@rs, I agree. There is a reason Woodward's book is titled: 'Fear'. Look, it worked to get a bunch of poor white farmers who had more in common with their toiling black slave neighbors to instead die for the plantation slave owning class in 1860.
19
The Republican Party readily adopted, aggressively prosecuted, and greatly exploited the "Southern Strategy" in 1968 both to assure Richard Nixon's electoral victory by denying American Independent Party presidential candidate George Wallace's increasing surge n the polls. Playing the 'race card' to preserve and maintain electoral positions by subtly telegraphing code phrases intended and designed to persuade and convince unswerving loyalty while relaying the subliminal message of racial superiority regardless of degree of education or extent of social awakening, the GOP's Faustian bargain is now producing adversely negative results. The embattled chief executive, conveniently reduced to bunker mentality, especially in light of the Paul Manafort guilty plea and cooperation deal, desperately strains to preserve and protect his self preservation by reminding his increasingly diminutive base that 'they' are better than 'them.' The words of George Wallace are ostensibly apparent. "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever" are mere archaic words to millennials and gene xers, but those words served a critical important milestone in the maturation of this nation. The significant difference is that George Wallace never demeaned, maligned, derided, or insulted any fellow Southerner expressing similar beliefs, even during periods of criticism. The chief executive now irrationally lashes out not getting his way. The base will cave and denounce the charade. Now
18
@Dean Browning Webb, Attorney and Counselor at Law
"... the GOP's Faustian bargain is now producing adversely negative results."
No, it is not. It is doing exactly what it was intended to do. Just ask the Kochs, ALEC, Sheldon Addelson, the Mercers and the rest of the 1% who have done so well.
10
How do you convince people who think this is a SEC football game and winning is the only thing that matters? Period. If they stop defending trump it would be like walking off the football field and forfeiting the game.
40
@Jenifer, Some of them may have a few other reasons you may not have heard about.
Patriotism: They admire and in fact expect their president to be patriotic.
Economy: They admire and in fact respect a president who takes positive steps to grow the economy and increase domestic jobs for citizens.
Citizenry: They admire and respect a president who understands that citizens vote; non-citizens don't; who understands that cities should not place the well-being of illegal unvetted aliens living here over the laws of the Federal government by giving them shelter and hiding them from deportation officials following federal law.
Confusion over allegiances. Trump supporters feel that their president should have their backs first--before having the backs of the rest of the world's citizens; they think that American citizenship is a wonderful thing, to be cherished, honored and protected, and that America's citizens should come first in any president's calculations about policies.
Security: Trump supporters know a little something about warfare and about the advances enemy states are making in space, in cyberwar, inside our borders, inside our businesses; inside our government, as well as outside our borders, constructing more and more advanced aircraft carriers, nuclear facilities, missiles, missile defense systems, etc. And Trump supporters understand that America's safety depends upon our superiority in each one of these areas and more. They are not foolish pollyannas.
5
Biting the hand that feeds you is never a good idea. Having said that, I believe there are two additional items that could easily push the die-hard fans in another direction. The first would be a revelation that he is nowhere as rich as he claims to be. When you fall in love with a millionaire only to find he's been conning you all the time is never a great way to keep friends and admirers.
The second revelation would be that he hasn't been nearly as generous to veterans organizations as he brags about. Veterans rank right up there with motherhood and apple pie. If you have lied about your association with them and you are discovered, forget about your support during an impeachment proceeding, let alone re-election dreams.
40
@Tom Q
He is not loved because of his money; you misunderstand 100%. Romney was destroyed by the Left based on the fact that he had numerous garages and an automatic elevator for his cars; the Left said we should hate him because he was "rich" and what could be worse than that--except perhaps that the tolerant Left hated his Mormanism and flocked to a play that made fun of it to music. My atheist friend actually told me one day she could never vote for Romney because he thought the Garden of Eden was in Kansas. I had to remind her: you are an atheist; you don't believe there WAS a Garden of Eden--anywhere.
Trump understood what had killed Romney's candidacy, so the first words out of his mouth--the very first in his candidacy, were these--and I remember them well: "I'm rich," he said, "I'm very, very rich." And that was the end of that. So the Left decided if they couldn't kill his candidacy by accusing him of being rich, perhaps "evil" would do the trick.
As for veterans and Trump, his base looks to his attempts to help the VA right itself; he has instituted policies making it easier to fire incompetent dead wood there and I believe after a period of time on a waiting list to no avail veterans can see private doctors at government's expense.
3
@Tom Q It sure stretches the imagination that the guy has $10 billion after filing for bankruptcy 6 times.
9
Personally, I as a Democrat miss Romney. A lot. Sanity is a good thing.
3
Trump is working on changing the federal judiciary in a positive direction. Trump will not increase my taxes and will rein in the administrative state, and the giveaway system that is our federal government. If Trump insults me and the liberal dems insult me (see numerous comments for this piece), I'll stick with the one that won't take my money.
15
@Robert, he will take your money. The environments (physical, economic, educational, health care) you live and work in will degrade from lack of resources and overt destruction and it will cost YOU. I suppose you are fully prepared to provide yourself with your own clean water, air, roads, safe food, etc. etc. Who needs NOAA, the FDA, Air Traffic Controllers, NIH? The "giveaway state" will just shift to more giveaway to interests that favor the making of more money, white supremacy, and a select narrow version of "religious belief". The rest of us will be on our own.
The military industrial complex, private prisons, for profit and religious schools, and other favored groups will be assured of continued support, after Medicare, SS, the VA, public schools, and all those wasteful National Parks are gone.
23
@Robert
Besides your money, what about our country? Do you have any concern over the long-term damage Trump is doing to the environment by rolling back protections, and to the economy by running up the deficit through tax cuts for the rich? He is running up a destructive tab that our children will be trying to pay off for decades...
1
@Robert
Trump added over a trillion bucks to the debt in case Reality has any part in your analysis.
1
'the “poorly educated” that Trump once professed to love'. I remember that. Those kinds of remarks from Trump showed his obvious contempt for the people he wanted to con into voting for him.
30
History shows that an appeal to "values", really an appeal to identity and especially to fear of threats to identity is the most effective tool in politics. Bar none.
So yes, if the idiot-in-chief commits more faux pas in such matter, that may hurt him.
Whether he will is a moot point.
If I were an American, I'd work much harder at making sure the non-Trumpies move their leaden behinds and go vote than at cracking the dumb-hardened Trump base.
38
@Nestor Potkine I'm an American --you can bet that we are working to get out the vote among folks who sat it out last time!
6
Amazing, how history repeats itself. Attacks on Mr. Trump has become a cottage industry. It has become almost historically identical, how the slave-owning- Democrats fictionalized, villainized, and assaulted the Republican President Abraham Lincoln. The slave-owning- Democrats perversely misunderstood Mr. Lincoln. They made him into a vicious, lawless monster─ violating every letter of the constitution. Mr. Lincoln was moody, brooding, pouting, liar. There are no other instance in American history, for its viciousness other than this current propaganda offensive by our media slandering of a sitting American President. What Mr. Trump is going through, is the same kind of bludgeoning that Mr. Lincoln was subjected to by the slave-owning-Democrats, in his effort to free the black-slaves during the tragic years American Civil war…
18
@ChandraPrince
This is now, those who look backwards in history, may fail to
see the present
7
@ChandraPrince
Interesting analogy. It would be great if this means we can look forward to the day when Mr. Trump’s tweets are reminiscent of Mr. Lincoln’s speeches.
Here’s my favorite, from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address:
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
25
@Jack
So we have moved away from the apt analogy provided by ChandraPrince to whether Lincoln's speeches were better than Trump's tweets. A less direct response is impossible to imagine.
People who voted for this lying con-man who spent years pretending not to know where Obama was born, just because he could, should be ashamed of themselves.
Trump supporters who had no qualms about a President being mocked when that President was Obama are now put off by the fact that their man is being exposed for the pathetically incompetent lying bully that he is.
Calling them ignorant (of policy) or hillbillies (parochial) or stupid (to be taken in by a con-man) is hardly the worst thing that could be said.
81
@DebbieR
They don't have the self respect necessary for shame.
17
Btw this NOT a good time for him to get a dog, not now, not ever.
53
@Irene
Speaking for all dogs, thank you. Woof.
49
@Irene
This IS a good time, however, for his base to consider once again the things the Left focuses on vs the things the right focuses on.
While the Left focuses on "orange," for example, the Right focuses on making the military strong;
while the left focuses on whether dogs like Trump, the Right focuses on finding jobs for minorities;
while the Left focuses on Trump's evil in tearing children from their mothers' arms, the Right notes that separation is a democrat policy and law of long standing;
while the Left focuses on whether Mrs. Trump is wearing appropriate shoes, the Right is concerned about vetting everyone who enters this country across our border,
and while the Left focuses on secret anonymous accusations, the right focuses on the truth.
3
@Remember in November
I prefer to remember the kind of September when dreams were kept beside my pillow.
Wishful thinking. Trump can't be wrong about everything and based on the candidates Southerners routinely nominate and elect one can reluctantly come to only one conclusion, they ARE dumb.
Today's example? Just look at the people who didn't evacuate the Carolina coast and still don't believe in climate change.
Trump counts on you and you never let him down. Just the country. You and the people you elect.
41
@Lou Good
Trump certainly can't be wrong about everything; that is why he will be re-elected in a land-slide while the Left spends its time barking.
2
Trump's core values and apples are same. He launched his campaign with carefully crafted hateful racism and reaches for it whenever he feels the need for whatever his demented mind demands. That is the secret. His one unpardonable faux pas was when he called Sessions another dumb southerner.
16
But, but, but, trump makes libruls’ heads explode. That has gotta be worth the health and future financial well-being of his supporters, right?
Just ask them.
17
Trump has been insulting his followers as dullards from day one. Because they are simpletons relative to understanding now that Trump is amoral and a dissolute personality is not changing anything. They are still responsible for their votes.
30
@DENOTE MORDANT
You folks really think that immorality like conducting an extra marital affair would affect the Right any nmore than such affairs, even while in office, by FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, et al affected you?
Or that this rises to the importance of a strong military, a patriotic president, a guy who can negotiate better trade deals and recognize deals involving climate and Iran that are terrible for the US (I actually read them, unlike you) ? It does not.
2
My educated-at-an-elite-university evangelical nephew will support Trump no matter what he does because he wants to repeal roe v. wade and roll back equal rights for LGTBQ+ folks. He apparently think his "god" prefers misogynists and racists to women and brown people.
113
@Margareta Braveheart
I could maybe see the roe v. wade thing, but to deny LGBQ rights.? really?
Does it matter that people who support Trump do not typically read the New York Times? Zeroing in on Trump's reported insults and political indifference to his base's own self interest may not be getting to the people it's intended for.
14
@David Graff
You are a NYT reader, right? Did you know that Separation of children from detained parents has been the law since the Clinton administration?
Did you know that Comey lied about there being an intent requirement in the gross negligece statute?
Did it ever dawn on you that Comey gave all the evidence necessary for Hillary to have been indicted on gross negligence, but then changed the name of the crime from gross negligence--which was in his orriginal draft, but changed by Strzok--to a synonym, and said she had done nohting that would cause any prosecutor to prosecute, which of course was countered by many prosecutors at the time? She committed gross negligence as evidenced by the activities she did which he recounded in his July 2016 speech. She committed a felony when she destroyed her emails that were under subpoena by a Congressional Investigating Committee. Did you even know that?
2
Nobody takes politicians' talk seriously until it hits THEM. "Oh, I didn't think he meant MY health care." (Kentucky small business woman in 2017) Oh yes, darlin', he did.
"Oh, I didn't think he meant OUR immigrants." (rural Washington State cranberry country sheriff in 2018). Yes, yes he did. So, yeah, maybe they are starting to get a clue. Thank GOD.
29
The subtitle to the headline kind of says it all. How stupid do you have to be to think a person whose MO is denigrating everyone who doesn't look like you, those whom you may irrationally fear, how long before he offends you. He is a narcissist, so the only people that matter to him are me, myself and I. He doesn't give a fig about you. You are simply a stepping stone, literally, to another title he can steal to feed his narcissism. Wake up. The only people he may care about outside himself are racists.
28
Here is the real secret to cracking Trump’s base, stop hating and attacking white people. If Democrats could bring themselves to do that then they would win a lot of people from Trump’s base over but you can’t do that because you hate us at your bone marrow. You cannot spit on and insult an entire class of people and then expect to get their votes. If you can bring yourself to stop hating Trump’s base, then you might be able to win some of them over.
19
@Eric I (blessed and condemned by history and circumstance to be born and raised in the South) and all my fellow white enemies of Republican perfidy from Goldwater on will stop spitting on your sins and insulting your sins when YOU get a bone marrow transplant.
15
@Eric
I am white (have been my whole life!), grew up in West Virginia, and am strongly anti-Trump, primarily because of his lack of character, erratic instability, and anti-democratic (small d) tendencies. I am a religious person, but I believe nothing good can come from allowing oneself to be led by such a flawed human being. Those who are following him for some desired result are going to sorely regret it I predict. The country will have paid a much larger price for any isolated gain.
My extreme distaste for Trump and frustration with the Trump base has nothing to do with being anti-white.
So...please reply! I am honestly very interested in what you see as anti-white in the Democrats. Maybe we can learn something...
40
@Eric Which part of wanting affordable healthcare and education for everyone and believing that wealthy people should pay their fair share in taxes is proof of Democrats hating white people? Trump is only interested in helping himself first and foremost and then making sure rich people become enormously richer. If you believe he cares one iota about anything or anybody else, you've been tragically misguided.
29
"class disdain"? ya can't buy class: Trump's fine apartment looks like Caesar's Palace while the movers are fitting out Seigfried and Roy.
24
@Raaaad
Agreed, and I am fascinated by the things the Left thinks matter.
If Trump supporters can honestly say they would have no problem with the same falsehoods, moral issues, and gibberish coming from a Democrat, I could respect them.
16
@dt,
Good point dt. don't overlook who the 2016 opponent was---and who among the remaining dems can launch a credible challenge--maybe Biden or some one new .
But do not overlook that the dems are just different sides of the same coin.
Isn't it time to stop referring to tax law changes as a tax cut? It wasn't a tax cut but a tax shift. We still have to pay taxes to pay the bills and the bills aren't reduced and now they are coming with even more interest. Hence, our tax bills have not been cut, they've been increased.
What's happened is that large corporations and wealthy individuals have been blessed by Republicans in paying a lower share of those taxes; this means middle and lower income individuals end up paying a higher percentage of the bills.
The Republican goal is to put so much of the burden on middle and lower income individuals (and to do it with ever higher interest rates on our debt) that they will eventually revolt and start cutting the social safety nets for those even less fortunate.
Reagan liked to say that a rising tide raises all boats. Well a rising tide is fine when you are sitting on your yacht; not so fine when you are treading water!
49
@GLD About the expression about rising tides:
The phrase is commonly attributed to John F Kennedy, who used it in a 1963 speech . . . It apparently came to JFK's attention this way: "the regional chamber of commerce, the New England Council, had a thoughtful slogan: 'A rising tide lifts all the boats.'"
2
@GLD
Are you treading water? Carrying too much debt? How did Trump raise interest rates on your debt, I wonder.
This is a fantasy, perhaps a hopeful one? Without exception the Trump people that I know, and I know several, have not changed their opinion and support of Trump one whit.
Others basically don't care what Trump does, they vaguely approve that he is sticking it to the establishment and that is enough for them. They are indifferent to cable news or newspapers.
The Trump voters that I know feel that Trump is on the right track, foreign and domestic, he distrusts, insults and hates the same people they do. This extends not only to the so-called "uneducated" rurals, the people that the Dems seem to wishfully hope comprise most of Trump's base, it also extends to the middle class, college educated people who voted for Trump and are staying with him through thick and thin. To say that the latter don't think basically the way that their rural colleagues think is simply not so.
I haven't any idea how to "crack Trump's base". The partisan divide is too vast, hateful and angry, each despises the other, and the Democrat and Republican parties each gleefully and cynically work very hard to keep it that way. Mr. Egan doesn't seem to get it quite yet.
294
@GR The basis for your conclusion is anectdotal. Statistics show that Trump's approval numbers are going down, and his favorability among the poorly educated is down 14 points. How can you argue with actual numbers, just because you happen to know a few people who feel differently?
14
I would trust the polls over your (very) small sample.
9
@GR
You say that each side despises the other, and that may be true, but I wouldmadd that the Left is perceived to hate the individuals who support Trump, and not just to hate the other "side" or point of view.
Trump is evil, they reason, and so anyone who supports evil must therefore be evil too. Good people don't support evil, and that is why is is justifiable to beat up conservatives, they think--or as Maxine Waters, suggests, to "crowd" and intimidate them whenever they appear in public, or to spit on them, as happens at conservative events on campuses.
I do not perceive comparable attitudes among conservatives: they don't call individual Hillary supporters evil, or shun them, beat them up, intimidate them whenever they appear in public, etc, because they merely disagee with their world view and on what is best for America.
3
In the town where I live, the right wing has taken over. When I retired here in 2005 there was an educated, liberal, female mayor who was voted into office three times. The state flag, with its Confederate symbolism, had been taken down, and the town prospered. (Ocean Springs is an artists colony and depends a lot on tourism).
In the last local election a white supremicist was elected mayor and the entire board of aldermen is made up of old, white men who worship at the alter of racism. The KKK has distributed their racist literature in people's driveways under cover of darkness. The racist flag is again flying in front of City Hall.
Trumpism has won in this neck of the woods and won't go away anytime soon. Even though local businesses are suffering because of the state flag being flown again, they are staunch supporters of the Republicans. They could go broke and still vote for the right wing.
370
Trump's supporters will vote for him regardless of his insults and attacks on their services (ACA or tax cut for wealthy). As someone mentioned below, his supporters fear and worry about immigrants more - esp. people of color who they think are taking their jobs and making them irrelevant in a country that should be only white, according to them. Not keeping hopes high for November! Trump definitely needs a strong Congress that keeps him in check and stops him from further destruction of this country!
152
@Sudha Nair
I fully concur with all points you made . Its racism and the fear of social relegation just like in Germany , even though
social security and health care or rather education is much better in Germany . What makes me speechless regarding the U.S. is the outrageous exploitation of the society by economical elites and - very important !!! - the curious electoral system where you can take office
without having the majority of the voters .
3
There's a bigger problem. Even though Trump supporters accept that he's lying about Stormy, if he meets the same fate as Bill Clinton, how will his supporters react? In Clinton's case, telling lies was wrong and justified punishment. In Turmp's case, telling lies is fantastic if it gets you what you want, which means there must be a massive conspiracy to bring down this fine and honest man.
And then there are the lawsuits, the Mueller investigation, the big success in Puerto Rico, the wall, school shootings yet to come, the great replacement for Obamacare, the deficit, the inevitable correction to the stock market and the easy to win trade war. Ok, nobody cares about Puerto Rico. But it's difficult to see how even a capable president could survive all what's coming. And then what happens? Be careful what you wish for.
7
@JR Bill Clinton committed perjury , which is lying under oath, not the same as lying, unless you think oaths don't count.
1
You are tremendously underestimating the role that "conservative" talk radio plays in the political arena. Alex Jones was a piker compared to the men and women that have been ranting over the air every weekday for decades now, breeding mistrust and disgust for the "libtards" and spinning the facts to counter any other narrative that is put forth. Trump's demise will not be the end of them; they will not go away quietly, nor am I suggesting their protected speech should be silenced. But they need a rational counterpoint - a "true" wave, if you will, to counter the hyperpartisan commentary that now drives the voting public. Name calling will not be enough to uproot Trump's support because they do it too, and they will roll with many more punches to bring about what the talk radio legions are calling them to do: save their country.
21
@Louise Phillips Yes. Or the Evangelical radio show hosts out there in rural America, broadcasting daily that we should be thanking God for Trump because his playbook is Revelations, and he is helping to bring on the Apocalypse (which actually explains some of his seemingly out-of-the-blue maneuvers).
They, of course, won't be here when the bad stuff really hits bc they will all be taken up, en masse, in the Rapture. Which also helps explain why these people don't seem to care about the long-term health of our planet.
I am not making this up. Drive a country road, and turn your radio on.
32
@Louise Phillips
You are right there. Too bad the Republicans bought up all these stations especially where FM doesn't propagate well.
10
I live among Trump supporters. Hardly a one approves of his behavior or policies. Yet they still support him. They support him when his tariffs disrupt their business, they support him when he embarrasses the entire nation with his petulant form of diplomacy, they support him even as his crass conduct shows he is as unfit for high office as a man can be.
I have heard all manner of explanations and excuses, but the one common thread in all of it, sometimes stated outright, sometimes only alluded to, is the issue of race. Trump's voter base is overwhelmingly white. Trump also unapologetically gives voice to the anxiety of white men (and women) all over the country about their diminishing hold on American culture. These are whites who are not doing well economically, and I think the last straw for them was the Democratic Party jumping with both feet onto the social justice train in the years leading up to the 2016 election.
In the realm of social justice the white working class is far less important than it is used to. Its issues are not considered especially pressing, given that other groups face far more persecution and obstacles to prosperity. That's not what the white working class wants to be told though. I believe white working class voters have congealed over the last 8 or so years into a racial voting bloc as monolithic as the African American one. I can't see their support for Trump weakening significantly as long as he is the only outlet for their racial anxiety.
79
Bringing a Trump voter to reason is like intervening with an addicted relative, or trying to help a child that secretly cuts themselves. In each case, there are overwhelming emotions that make the self-harm seem reasonable.
There are many Trump voters that actively seek to harm others, for reasons that would not be out of place at the Salem Witch Trials. However, this is a different problem with a different political solution.
Every self-harming Trump voter is a unique individual. Their thoughts and feelings arise from their lived experience, which, by the way, includes the experience of being told by the people in their lives that they have to think and feel a certain way.
We will never be able to eliminate the root causes of all self-harming behavior. On the other hand, a lot has been learned about how to address specific forms of self-harm, such as drug addiction or self-injury through cutting. We can learn from these in our search for solutions to political self-harm, which might usefully begin with an end to the moral posturing so popular with “progressives”.
5
Trump's gangsters are falling like flies and by this time next year you'll be able to play prison football, offense and defense, with MAGA convicts. But, speaking about Trump diehards, they're all intellectuals from dirt farms and junk yards. They proudly display their high school diplomas on the refrigerator and know the number of times you can declare bankruptcy in America. They can provide detailed driving directions to the local detox center and enumerate the number of convicted sex offenders that lives in the neighborhood. Trump diehards cannot explain the philosophy of "The Lost Cause" but they'll show you the Dixie Battle Flag tattoo on their shoulder.
14
@terry brady
I think you should think hard about not indulging your anger and try to be a more constructive force. And remember that a critical wedge of Trump voters voted for Obama. A lot of people, left and right, read this board - let's try to make things better, eh?
12
@Jersey Dad
I agree. It's exactly this kind of condescending behavior that hardens Trump supporters against "liberals."
1
What the NYT and the Democratic Party completely fail to understand, perhaps due to a mental block, is this: it is possible to both not support Trump yet still vote for him, to despise him and still vote for him, to find him utterly disgusting yet still vote for him. Not understanding this, you see his approval numbers and rub your hands with glee. This is a mistake. It was a mistake the last time, you learned nothing from the experience, still don't even know or recognize the mistake you made and are making the same mistake again, having doubled down on a number of things that failed in the past. How you think this will succeed is beyond me. You are beyond help. This is willful ignorance. You just don't want to know what is going on, do you, Mr Jones?
12
@krnewman: As you describe them, I picture these Trump supporters flagellating themselves.
8
Be careful characterizing Trumps base as only rural aging white folks. I know a lot of northeastern retired executives who love what he is going. As long as their 401ks are going up and Trump keeps making fun of minorities and bashing what he and they like to call "political correctness", these suburban, aging northeasterners, are on board. By the way, there are also more than a few young white executives I know who are prospering in this bifurcated economy are completely on the Trump train, too. The seem to enjoy his bull-in-the-china closet approach to everything as long as it supports their view that they deserve to be on top.
52
"We’ll soon be running a trillion-dollar deficit, up 32 percent this fiscal year, thanks to the tax cut. Wasn’t this the sort of thing that roused Tea Party opposition to President Obama — crippling our children with a legacy of debt?" Actually, I thought the thing that roused Tea Party opposition to President Obama was that he's black. Interesting thought, though.
22
it wasn't the tax cut. we're taking on record revenues. it is the spending!
1
@ScaredStiff You mean like that $13 billion to the farmers to offset the tariffs?
Trump's base and their grasp of politics is exemplified by one of my in laws' response to an anti trump comments I made in the Blue Ridge mountains over Labor Day weekend. 'you like your guy, I like mine.' It really is that simple to low information voters: They've bought their boat, they are out of sight of land, and whether or not it has motor or oars, they're going to float around in it until it sinks or runs aground. They're uncomfortable with freedom of choice and have opted instead for freedom FROM choice. That's just the way it is.
55
One doesn’t need to convert them all, just enough of them.
And getting people that never liked him, but never liked Hillary either, getting those people to vote against him, that’s important too.
Things are probably shaping up « fine enough », for changes.
Ivanka can just live in a bubble for the rest of her life. Send a member of her staff out for groceries.
Because history will not be friendly to her father. In the later years of his life, he disgraced the family name, in the worst way.
9
So deficits don't matter? I guess if you are the people collecting the interest on those deficits you are not going to complain much.
1
@Jack Sprat The Chinese don't get to vote (yet).
3
Hmmm, looks like a lot of leftist dreaming here. But here's an idea: Democrats could propose policies that actually grow rather the stifle the economy.
10
@Bill Carson Reforming Health Care is one of those ways to grow the economy. Having a healthy population is essential. The ACA was the first major step in that direction and by and large it has worked. I would have preferred a single payer system. And there was a lot about the ACA that needed to be fixed as it was rolled out. (Note: Bush Medicare Drug Plan also had issues - difference was both sides worked to fix it and there have been no complaints since).
The big issue that has been ignored is the actual cost of our healthcare (not insurance)! Again, a single payer system could help to rein that in by playing hardball with suppliers who have gotten wealthy off of our health - or lack thereof.
Do the Republicans have a plan? Obviously not. All they have attempted to do is take healthcare away from millions.
2
always interesting to speculate what a Republican means by stifling the economy. do they mean something about the ease of borrowing money with vaporous colleteral, or perhaps more along the lines of restricting businesses from getting away with anything and everything they choose as long as they smell potential profit?
2
@Bill Carson, the economy has grown with each of the last Democrat Presidents. You could look it up.
2
Don't believe this analysis for a moment. Sure, much of his base may not like Trump as a person, but they'll still vote for him because of his embrace of many (not all) of the conservative imperatives they find important.
First, they will put up with porn stars, nonsense celebrity tweets and general passing relationship with factual detail if he continues to nominate originalist judges to the federal judiciary. Which Democrat, exactly, will nominate judges willing to protect religious freedom, gun rights, and state rights to the extent that the average Trump base voter cares about? Answer: none. All they see are more Kagan's and Sotomayor's getting put in positions to bend the Constitution around a liberal agenda. They'll take their chances with Trump.
Second, they believe Trump is honestly trying to control illegal immigration. At the same time, they see Democrats embracing ABOLISH ICE movements and open border policies. Maybe they don't like the s**thouse country commentary, but at least they know Trump is trying to control illegals. They'll take their chances with Trump.
Finally, taking an unapologetic hardline position on the trade imbalance and on foreign policy is highly attractive to the base. The perceptions they have of the Democrats are that they are globalists, not nationalists.
In short, they'll stick with Trump if only because the Democrats are unable to produce a palatable alternative. Better the devil you know...
18
@Hillary. You nailed it.
4
@Al
There is much more. They believe in patriotism; when your national anthem is played, you honor and respect it, because it represents your country and the people who have fought and died for it, as well as those who have been disabled in war defending it.
If you feel you have grievances, the signing of hte national anthem is an inappropraite place to air that dirty laundry, as if your particular cause is more important to be honored than the nation itself and all the liberties and opportunities it provides. Sure you have the right to take a knee--go ahead--but don't expect Trump supporters to find this appropriate behavior.
You begrudge his support for a strong military and call him a war-monger for wanting the US to be militarily prepared to defend the homelamd agaist attack from within, from abroad and/or from space. Trump supporters notice that the Left's position is very like the position of eveyr hostile nation--what would please them more than a militarily weak US?
1
Most of us Trump supporters are digging in. Not cracking at all. In fact a few of the democrats we know are ‘walking away’. Add to that the fact that Trump’s Hispanic support is much higher than in 2016 while black support for Trump has gone up 36%.
Democrats have zero to offer except previously failed policies. Trump has conclusively shown that his policies work. 800k manufacturing jobs in the last 19 months vs 26k in the 19 months previous. 4.2 gdp, not a single missile launched by North Korea since the meet/greet. Middle East could go either way but I’m happy to give Trump the same chance I gave obama during his first term.
Sure seems all the people against him can’t say his policies don’t get results. As the democrats become more and more shrill I am more sure than ever that Trump was/is the right choice. I’m afraid for the dems that they are yet again so sure that most people think like them, all they will harvest are more tears after the midterms.
10
@Llyod Where do you get your figures??? Black support is up 36%? You must be watching Fox News non-stop. The fact that the few Democrats you know are "walking away"...I would say that is because they can't stand listening to you anymore - not that they have changed their views.
22
@Donna
"I would say that is because they can't stand listening to you anymore. . ."
I would say that they have not really BEEN listening.
@Llyod
So then all of the North Korean missiles *not* launched under Obama and Clinton are evidence of their presidential effectiveness?
Also, if you look and listen closely you'll realize that the people doing the most to undermine Trump are the exact opposite of shrill. The horrifying mistake of his presidency will be ended by meticulously gathered and presented evidence.
The Watergate investigation, the Nuremberg Trials, Truth and Reconciliation in RSA--they all relied on incisive, methodical work, and the end of Trumpism will be accomplished in the same way.
3
I have to admit, it takes a Tim Egan to sustain empathy for the enablers of the cruelest government this nation has ever endured. This is not one difficulty, but two which are severable. We need "malice toward none" to remain in mind, when this revolting tyranny is finally, positively, thoroughly crushed.
7
@Carter Nicholas
"the cruelest government this nation has ever endured."
That is quite a statement. And it is of course not backed up by any evidence of same. You all just "know" it, I guess. And that is one other reason you can't crack his base; they hear stuff like this and marvel at your conclusions.
3
It seems he doesn't like Southerners or dogs and anyone who is not completely obedient to his whims--which includes most of humanity--and he doesn't like anyone who ever criticizes him---It turns out that he pretty much doesn't like anyone, except for his immediate family--not including the women, except for Ivanka--and of course there is one dog he seems to accept, his lapdog Mike Pence.
25
@shimr
On the other hand, his supporters feel that his tri-artite plan for increasing job opportunites, growth and wage growth will work, and this rises to a more serious level than whether he likes dogs.
Limit labor supply through control over illegal immigration; that raises wages and domestic employment and reduces unemployment rolls; reduce corporate taxes; that makes them more competitive in the international marketplace, and then they need more workers; reduce business-binding regulations; that makes it easier to start and run a business, and stimulating businerss stimulates job growth.
Bow wow!
2
@Oxford96
None of the tired supply-side talking points you've listed here has ever actually worked in any viable, long-term way. It's all just rhetorical cover for another round of pillaging and mismanagement.
There is only so much public wealth that you can hoover into private hands. Or, put differently, there isn't really much of the safety net left for you to redistribute upward--other than gutting Social Security and Medicaid/Medicare. And let's see how fast that loses you almost every voter over 60.
The economic growth of late is nearly all going to the already wealthy. The stock market gains are meaningless to the 50% of Americans who have no stocks, and the unemployment numbers are similarly inconsequential when the new jobs are mostly poverty-wage dead ends.
The "reduced corporate taxes" you're celebrating just mean bigger top-tier bonuses and more stock buybacks. And starting a business sounds heroic and all, but matters not a bit if nobody has any money with which to buy your goods and services.
1
Trump voters have a belief system and a little community. It is a comfortable grievance group not likely to move off of that- they like where they are.
It's the old "The South Shall Rise Again" while you cash your subsidy check mentality, so until the old folks are watching America's taillights pull away in the dark, they probably will just sit there.
I am not sure other Americans have to "convince" people who
have a stake in a perverse contrarianism.
We need to just do the right thing and these folks can get on board, jump overboard, or do nothing and get left behind again.
But change occurs when people deal with reality. There is only so much energy you can put into telling people that they are being played by rich folks. Being a victim seems to be the point.
16
@Kay Johnson
they are being played by rich folks?
Really? Their job opportunities are increasing, and in many businesses already wages and benefits are increasing. Taxes are lower; there's more money in the pocket.
Trump suppoprters dom't care if the rich get richer so long as they do.
1
@Oxford96
The tax break is for 5 years and then the trillion dollar rip-off has to be paid for.
Jobs yes. Increased wages= maybe for some. Wages have been stagnant for years by any measure. Wealth is in the stock market right now.
@Kay Johnson
It is common sense that wages have to rise naturally when labor is in short supply; this is how business attracts a scarce resource: by raising wages or benefits so it can better compete with other businesses. It is already happening. Workers can't better themselves if they don't even have one foot on the first rung of the ladder. First you have to get in the game--get the job. Next you do exceptionally well at it, watching for an opportunity to move up, or out to better opportunities. Thus has it always been, but now more of our citizens are fleeing the unemployment and welfare rolls for employment, increasiing the money every week in the pocket. Blacks, hispanics, women--all employed in record numbers.
This is good news. In five years the revenues from all this added employment and spending should kick in.
The increase in budget spending, if you will recall, occurred when Democrats demanded the exact amount spent on the military be spent on their programs, so actually, they raised the deficit. By the way, Obama doubled it. Did you post your concerns then or have you just discovered them now?
1
You won't split Trumps vote by acting like an authoritarian mess. The west is turning away from that.
2
Won’t it be wonderful when Trump’s base turns against him so that the snob elites of the Northeast, Left Coast, and university towns have the unfettered ability to turn them into the New Peasantry?
4
Mr. Egan fails to understand why Trump is our President. Or at least Tim has drawn false simplistic conclusions.
Rural uneducated white men are only 1 of 3 reasons why republicans have complete unchecked control of our country.
Reason #2 is uneducated Latino voters. If Latino voters in Texas showed some backbone and stood up to being called rapists or saying Puerto Rican’s deaths are equal to deaths of white Americans, then Texas, Arizona, Florida and inland California would be vote Democrat.
Reason #3 is uneducated women. These women heard Trump in 2015 and 2016 attack and demean and insult the female half of humanity, and they did not care.
The Republican Party if a cancer destroying America. Everyone who actively or passively put them on power should be called out. All Americans are responsible for Trump in some way.
20
@Old man Sgt
Gosh, I know very highly edudated female Trump supporters, and they observe that female unemployment has dropped to the lowest level in decades. They note that Trump has hired women in the highest echelons of his organization, and even watched one of them record White House conversations and make them public. What a great thing she has done for all females who seek high position and access to inner circles of government. He's a racist and against women, the line goes, but she was a black female. Oh, well, you can't win them all. Right?
4
Numbers that show that the hardcore Trump base is cracking?
Cites, please.
No. Trumps base shows no signs of 'cracking', NYT's.
5
The "decline" is actually due to increased desperation on the part of the rigged suppression poll manufacturers.
1
“Trump — who just passed the 5,000 mark for false or misleading statements during his presidency”
That you are counting merely prompts most people to discount you…just as you discount the numbers that are important to those dying rural and southern white people. “Progressive” are very adept at counting as long as it supports the agenda of the false religion Marxianity but what happens when the math evidences vote fraud on a scale the only solution is civil war?
Did you know that the US Hispanic population in 1960 was just 6.3 million and is now 58 million while the population as a whole merely doubled? Even if one allows a higher Hispanic birthrate extrapolating the 6.3 to 18 million that leaves 40 million illegals which translates to 57 representatives in the House of Representatives. Both “progressives” and libertarian small ‘r’ republicans fronting for corporation benefit from the “11 million illegals” lie…but the sleeping giant is rising to the reality of a Constitution being threatened.
The refusal to concede the truth will result in an inevitable civil war.
3
@Adler
"the US Hispanic population in 1960 was just 6.3 million and is now 58 million while the population as a whole merely doubled? Even if one allows a higher Hispanic birthrate extrapolating the 6.3 to 18 million that leaves 40 million illegals"
Sounds like Trumpian math to me. It makes no sense.
8
I think you forgot to include legal immigration.
7
Tim, the picture of Trump with his OK sign, over his eye is telling.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why Trump uses the OK sign, is not clear, but maybe it can be used against him in one way or another, when he lies and threatens.
For example, what if anti-Trump people used two (2) OK signs?
When Trump lies, they could say, "OK, OK, enough is enough!"
===============================================
Showing 2 OK signs, together, might remind us of his craziness!
@Harry Pearle
Let me add that Trump is right that it is a "witch-hunt",
in that he casts spells with lies and threats, constantly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Trumps spell casting resonates in the media, daily.
And so he continues to dominate our attention.
But now, Trump's spell casting is backfiring.
So, I suggest pushing back with things like 2 OK signs, etc.
1
The key to stirring-up, nonetheless "cracking", Trump's base is for the DEMS to keep doing exactly what they're doing right now.
Reasonable people on BOTH sides of the aisle are understandably appalled by the antics of the DEMS on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Juvenile, tabloid sensationalism...gross hypocrisy...a blatant double standard...obstructionism. These terms only mildly describe what's been going on throughout the Senate Judiciary Hearings...as if the DEMS don't already know exactly what they're doing! In fact, they wear it brazenly as a badge of honor! And if the situation were reversed this would NEVER be allowed to happen, and everyone knows it.
Needless to say, this is a carefully orchestrated plan by the DEMS to rally their most extreme BASE followers who could actually care less about "hypocrisy", a "double standard" or blatant obstructionism. It's all about the ends justify the means, no matter what, and people trying to achieve notoriety for themselves in a "scorched earth" situation. Nothing more and nothing less.
4
There is a fundamental difference between the support for Trump himself and support for candidates who align themselves with him. The latter are largely supported,or not, based on their own qualities, not his. Some will win because they support Trump and others will lose despite supporting him. It is much more about the candidate than Trump; his embrace is not necessarily transferable.
The former group has a individualized belief in Trump - an extraordinary personal investment, that is largely unrelated to support of any actual policies. This is characterized by the observation that nothing he can say or do will diminish their support. They cannot reject him, because it would mean rejecting themselves and that they will not do.
6
I feel for trump supporters. They were hoodwinked into voting for
a person who talks down to them.
Calling Sen Sessions a Dumb Southerner made me sick.
Trump has never known a hard days work, he bullies and lies.
When others stood ready to defend our country he was
getting 4 medical deferments for bone spurs.
While friends of mine died for our country.
10
@The Chief from Cali I'm always perplexed by the sentiment that we Trump voters were "hookwinked". Trump has pursued with great zeal all of the policies that he advocated for during the election. I speak for millions of Trump supporters when I say that we're thrilled with the policies, judicial appointments and foreign policy track of the Trump administration, even if we wish he'd temper himself on Twitter occasionally.
3
@Blue switched Red
If you weren't hoodwinked then you are complicit. Try to keep that good thought in mind while you're being marched off to debtor's prison.
2
@Blue switched Red
Then do you think the voters know that Trumps zeal has not brought back jobs, that his tariffs have made goods more expensive and health
care non existent?
Oh and how would like to be called a “Dumb
Southerner”?
Still really glad the Clintons are not back in the White House.
7
I absolutely cannot understand how you can say this is better than the Clintons. That’s totally irrational thinking.
9
you hit the nailon the head: support for Trump is not rational, it is emotional. it's not a reasoned conclusion but a kind of blind faith that gives reassurance to the terminally frightened and unappeasably angry.
no one wants to wind up on the ashheap of history, but when you look down and find yourself there, denial is an expectable first response. the next step is attacking whoever you're convinced is responsible for your predicament. and later, you deny the whole thing, like a good German.
6
I’m going down with my guns and my bibles blazin!
4
@Mike. Hey mike, I get that we are portrayed as gun nut, fundamentalists by the left, but you are far safer out here than in Chicago which has about the same population as Idaho and Montana but more gun murders on some weekends than both states do in a year. Of coarse, this doesn't play into the lefts narrative so the broad brush paint job continues.
6
My impression from the Trump supporters I know is that they don't use Twitter and generally don't care what he says there. Occasionally, a supporter might say they wish Trump tweeted less... but that's based on a broad impression of his behavior on Twitter, not in response to specific tweets. They're not out there refreshing his feed and parsing its meaning.
Also, I don't think they make connections between his actions on, say, trade and the potential for price increases of basic goods.
On the other hand, they draw unrealistic, ahistorical connections between Trump and the stock market or the unemployment rate. They don't care about long-term trends or future prospects. They hear the market is up, and that's enough. Even if they do not have any stock holdings and therefore see no benefit, they take the market's performance as evidence of a broader economic success that was created entirely by the "businessman" in the White House. They seem to assume that that success applies to all of the president's areas of concern, from diplomacy to law to the management of the federal bureaucracy. They think we are respected now, and weren't before.
It's not really based on anything that I can see. Conservatism has always been an emotional impulse rather than a rational one. Feelings and reactions matter more than... well, we all know.
26
@Blue switched Red. I live in a red state, make good money with an advanced degree and pay the top tax rate. I'm not a trump supporter except when it comes to border enforcement and standing up to certain trading partners. But you make good points. If you don't live on the coast and sneer at anybody who doesn't tow the leftist line you're an uninformed deplorable. That strategy won't work in 2020 anymore than it did in 2016.
@Blue switched Red Then please share. What is it that makes you support him?
@Blue switched Red Aren't you committing the sin you've accused me of here? You've misconstrued my first-hand impressions and then applied them to millions of people. And then you took your own resume and extended it to your fellow voters.
My characterization of conservatism is well documented. Go back to Wordsworth and read his reaction to the French revolution. Conservatives have always expressed fondness for the old ways and horror at planning. I didn't invent this view.
Finally, if we're going to talk about our bona fides... I grew up in a small town in rural Michigan, my dad's a former auto worker and cop any my brother's a Marine. I saw and worked with plenty of seasonally employed right-wingers who loved nothing more than to complain about the "blacks" in Detroit while gleefully awaiting their unemployment checks.
I know how these people think. I went to school, church and hunting camp with them. I'm Facebook friends with them now. I don't need a lecture on the evils of coastal elitism. I'm speaking from experience.
preaching to the choir, you ought to publish in the Times West Virginian, may be that would get real results...
You forgot to mention the ridiculous and uncalled for tariffs Trump has instituted which hurt his base more than any other group.
10
And so you imagine these people will now vote for Sanders or Warren or Booker (or even Bloomberg) in 2020? I don't know that I would get too excited just yet. Conjectures like this drawn from a few polls are not reliably predictive. If, instead, the intent was merely to express your wish that Trump's base should "crack" then that sentiment could be expressed more succinctly in one sentence or, to be modern and up to date, a Tweet.
8
Democrats need to address concerns of the working class without restricting that attention to black or Latino or LGBTQ or female working class.
In their insistence on enumerating the minorities within the working class needing help, Establishment Democrats, and Hillary specifically, left out a very large group, white working class males. Establishment Democrats apparently believed that white working class males didn't need any extra help. They were supposedly already privileged. Is it any surprise that white working class males were and are resentful about being put at the end of the line (if mentioned at all) of people needing help?
Contrary to movies, poverty doesn't ennoble people; it makes them desperate. And when they're ignored, the worst of human nature comes out: racism, sexism, xenophobia, a willingness to find scapegoats and listen to a demagogue.
About 6 to 8 million Obama voters voted for Trump. Did they suddenly all become racists in 2016? Trump filled a need among white working class males, the need to get as much attention as any other group of people.
Democrats need to do something Hillary was terrible at, to show white working class males that Democrats are also concerned about them. You do that by stopping this enumeration of subgroups within the working class that deserve special attention and emphasize that it is all members of the working class that deserve special attention.
37
@Steve C
Excuse me ? Hilary had plans for helping white working class males expand their opportunities. Unfortunately, this might mean re-training (we don't need any more coal miners, or steel workers), and this retraining would also be available to non-whites, both of which seem to be non-starters for Trump voters.
The Republicat party has offered nothing for the white working class male other than blatant and easily discernible lies.
7
Oh my god. White men being ignored. This is the biggest myth ever. You very well may be pointing out that what matters to elections is whether or not white men believe in the myth, not whether it’s true. But you truly believe this...
Despite them being only 31% of the population, American white males are the one demographic group in America that always has and still today gets the most of everything. Most income, most visibility in about every bit of media, top jobs, most ads geared toward them, most leading characters in blockbuster movies, most leading characters In children’s books....and so much more.
But most importantly, white men are the leading demographic holding elected offices in the DEMOCRATIC party (of course, the Republicans have them beat).
So yes, election strategy might be helped by reinforcing this myth that white men are ignored. But fairy tales are not for grownups. The rest of us are tired of being beholden to this myth.
6
@John Watlington
Where was that plan to help white working class males, somewhere in the fine print of her website which nobody read?
You knew Bernie Sanders was for helping everyone in the working class because it was in every speech he gave, and he did that without slicing and dicing the working class.
Trump did the same, except (unlike Bernie) Trump didn't mean it when he promised to help the working class.
Trump supporters don't read the NYT. I know many wealthy, educated Trump supporters. They read the WSJ, NY Post, Newsmax, and other right wing rags. I can only assume they voted for him because they figured he would save them money on their taxes, because that's all they care about. They don't want any of their money going to help anyone else.
29
@Jim Tagley I'm a hardcore Trump supporter and I read the New York Times literally every day, along with The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and countless other left-wing publications. Most of the Trump voters I know who are politically engaged frequently read thought-pieces from the anti-Trump resistance media.
13
@Blue switched Red
Fascinating!
Do you also read Breitbart, listen to Limbaugh and watch FoxNews? Please tell us how you decide which one is telling the "truth". Do you also do primary research? Where do you get the time to do all this and how is it possible to land on the position that Trump is the answer?
I don't get it. Please explain.
3
@Blue switched Red, it's pity you have never seen a true left-wing publication. You would have a heart attack finding out that all those you mention are mere centrist liberals.
A cure for stupidity? Nah. People are far more likely to vote against their best interests if they know that those whom they hate the most will also be effected. Misery not just loves company, it demands company...
9
Trump's supporters are likely to remain loyal as long as so many Democrats remain mesmerized by identity politics and favor porous borders. Although racism may generate some of Trump's support, many or most Trump voters have legitimate reasons for fearing the effects of large scale immigration, particularly illegal immigration. I have met very few Trump voters who like Trump himself. Most, in my experience, dislike or even detest him, and a large number of these voters prefer the Democratic position on many issues. But they are likely to continue to support Trump or at least the Republicans until the Democratic party becomes more sympathetic toward their economic and cultural anxieties.
23
@Cromer
Don't hold your breath waiting for the Democratic party to become sympathetic to the Trump voter and validate their racism.
You might be correct that validation of their "cultural" (i.e. racist) anxieties is what Trump voters are looking for, but tolerating racism is itself a racist act, and one that is a step too far for many Democratic party supporters.
6
@Cromer That's all well and good, and your point is not lost entirely, but have you bothered to mention to any of those "Trump voters" you seem to keep close at hand that this "porous borders" nonsense is counter-factual? And don't even get me started about "economic and cultural anxieties." Fear of being dragged into the 21st Century is no excuse for living in the 19th. Ignorance-bound nativism and racism have shelf-lives, for crying out loud! It's not good enough that people live longer, when they just stay stupid, and cravenly selfish, and bigoted, and, for all of that, self-destructive.
6
@Cromer We get it; many Trump supporters are hurting economically. But cultural anxiety? That sounds like a personal problem.
3
Perhaps a hot mic will bring down the curtain on our Lonesome Rhodes.
2
Too many on the left - Mr. Egan among them - miss something EXTREMELY important as to how quickly America recovers from this variant of "swine flu."
Whatever the complex of reasons - including people just about illiterate when it comes to politics, history, etc. - why 40%+ of U.S. citizens have behaved (many of them STILL) like lemmings - one has to recognize that the biggest single obstacle for them to "return to sanity" is
admitting how mistaken they were.
Anyone who questions the word "mistaken" probably is no longer reading this, of course.
BUT THE POINT IS - what your relative (or mine) or friend or acquaintance hates even more than DJT's possible insults (much less policies that injure them) is the chorus of "I told you so" s from people like you and me they expect if they change course at this point.
Even worse, in some ways, Trump & Fox have so confused these poor souls [I'm excluding wealthy people who probably just voice a plausible "If you saw a $100 bill on the ground, wouldn't YOU pick it up?!" ... or even upper middle class people who MIS-calculate that Trump is in THEIR best interest, financially] that they think that Steven Colbert, Alec Baldwin, etc. would like to see them squirming - and they feel about THEM the way WE feel about Alex Jones.
Yes, "among ourselves," we probably DO wish that they came a lot further than, "Well, he really IS a terrible person,"
BUT WE REALLY have to all but eliminate that fear if - starting in Nov. - we start to mend.
10
In other words, they’re stupid, but they’re not *that* stupid.
I disagree. All evidence indicates they are.
10
@Kip - calling people "stupid" is one sure way not to get their votes in the next election. I hope the DEMs remember that.
4
I've been tracking a lot of the Pro Trump comments only to find that they many, if not the majority are facsimile of profiles bearing a name, a face, but have no real identity. Further investigation of two profiles led to an online discussion with the same person who later admitted that he was employed and paid to manage a bank of profiles up to 150 fictional profiles and to comment on and or to engage with people whom disparaged Trump while he worked at his convenience store in Nashville.
26
@tshmeaigo the fake Trump supporters are still all over Facebook and I posted so much about Hillary during the campaign so I'm still getting friend requests from military men who are fake accounts. Do you think people were paid to vote for him?
4
This information needs to get out, and broadly. The manipulation continues.
1
but in the end, can dems put up a votable candidate? or are we all just supposed to vote dem because we hate trump. that's not a platform. Mario cuomo just got the primary bid for ny governor on the "we hate trump, he's attacking us" platform. what a joke.
5
@bored critic Maria Cuomo was a decent governor, but he's dead. We're stuck with Andrew.
3
It all sounds logical. But logic said this man couldn't win a single electoral vote back in 2016.
7
Trump is incapable of love, friendship, or even a genuine alliance with his supporters. He's an emotional cripple. He doesn't care at all for his "base," or any human being but himself.
So, the lights may start turning for some of his hard core supporters. But where, then, are they going to go? The Democratic Party?
Look at the sneering disdain ordinary liberals have for the white, rural, flyover country demographic right here in these comments. They hate their traditionalism, religiosity, middle Americanness, their entire way of life. Mr. Egan's own condescension for these people is palpable.
It's been that way for generations, and liberals are shocked - shocked! - that they can't seem to get these rubes and bumpkins who they so loathe to vote for them "in their own interest."
Maybe the geniuses at the DNC will figure this out some day.
15
@Livonian. I don't think people who live on the coasts 'hate' midwesterners or southerners for their values, but they do hate that these values may be forced on everyone else.
17
@Livonian What you don't seem to understand is that most of us on the "elite coasts" weren't born here. We moved here from "flyover country" because the coasts are where the good-paying jobs are, and we also don't have to put up with the constant racism that infected our hometowns.
We are all for traditionalism (as long as it doesn't include the tradition of "hating the other"), we have no problem with religiosity (I work and live with Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Confucionist, Daoist, agnostic and atheist people, and we all get along just fine). Many of us grew up on or near farms, and even learned to shoot and hunt growing up.
But as I mentioned earlier, what we can't stand about the middle of the country is how racism is perfectly acceptable, and ignorance is viewed as a positive trait.
11
Born and bred West Virginian, but had to move out yrs ago in order to make a living. From the moment of settlement of white people, WV has been used for its coal, gas, oil, lumber, etc. We are used to being suckers for the extraction of our natural resources. With opioids they don"t need a product; just a human body for profit. Underneath the graft is a a wonderful group of people in need of real help.
24
Forget about the Trump cult base, they will never desert their dear leader. Focus on the huge population that sat out their voting rights, focus on the ones that gambled their vote away on third parties. Those are the ones who will have the power to tip the scales, again.
25
Numbers. Voters have been purged from the polls in Ohio, Wisconsin. Is it too late to reverse the rules that make that horror true? The majority of registered voters will prefer Democrats (maybe for the foreseeable future). What percentage of them will vote? Get people registered. Get out the vote. The rest will take care of itself. The majority of Americans know that the distribution of wealth (not the redistribution via charity) has to change. The majority knows that global warming is a huge but solvable problem. The majority wants humane immigration.
9
Com'on. I don't know if wrestling has changed very much but insulting the audience is the very essence of its appeal. The way to reach Trump supporters is to put aside our middle-class affectations and treat trump supporters with the respect they deserve and start speaking truth to their prejudices and beliefs.
We haven't changed at all from the time of Peter the Hermit and another Children's Crusade will only give us a lot of dead children. It is time to reclaim the constitution and the founders devotion to science and a Creator who created and moved on. There will be no miracles from outside and Americans will decide their future. low taxes for the rich and extremely impotent government are no cure for what ails America!
8
It's getting tiring for pundits to continue to blame Trump on the white working-class. The typical Trump voter is not some struggling plebe. He's wealthy and prosperous in addition to being white.
12
Kudos to Mr. Egan for sidestepping the obvious: Trumpism is a safe harbor for white bigots. Most of Trump's hard-core faithful are conditioned to expect more empty promises (thus their hatred for Obamacare but curious semi-warmth toward same when it's called ACA), but at least this president is putting the boot heel harder to black and brown Americans.
Ennobling these basest hatreds by costuming their believers in somber hues of "economic anxiety," or "cultural displacement" adds to a robust and growing body of work by columnists and reporters at The Times and elsewhere that whitewashes the reemergence of white supremacy into the American political mainstream,
14
@Jamey
The problem with your analysis is that it's been used to describe anyone who dares dissent against the left's orthodoxy on every issue for generations, well before the rise of Trump.
We call it "political correctness," but that is far too tepid a label for the brutal, illiberal policing of our national discourse by those who have cynically weaponized issues of race, sex, gender, etc.
What happens when the left's cultural hegemony is used to stifle - rather than debate - decent, legitimate questions about say, mass immigration, rights of bakers to use their conscience, etc.? The left finally becomes unable to make their own case, while the weapon of "bigot!" becomes blunted by overuse.
And we discover that those who are unfairly demonized and shut down don't simply evaporate, aren't de-platformed out of existence, but become very angry, and fodder for demagogues.
This is what is happening - frighteningly - in the US and throughout Europe right now. The left is going to have to recognize that history is never "won." It's not all over but the shoutin', and to learn to listen and engage again.
9
Once the base sees that Trump is an abusive con man, what do they do about it? At that point I compare them to a woman with an abusive husband. She knows he is dangerous, but she's afraid to leave. For the GOP base, where do they go if they leave Trump? There is no other place in the GOP, which leaves Democrats, Libertarians, or staying home.
9
Donald Trump's support comes in some measure from those who think they may be able to get some of those attractive old jobs back ...
they can't, of course, manufacturing (always in a fluid state) has largely moved on ;
I don't think anyone understands this reality better than the POTUS / I think he's stringing these people on with all the skill of one of those old midway carnies who once tried to seperatr te me from my dime.
5
Days ago, Trump and Cult45 could have learned of the values, decency and character that make a person great, when a lady and two gentlemen said: "We ... mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not cheap rhetoric from men who will never come near the sacrifice he gave.... Nor the opportunistic appropriation of those [living] lives of comfort and privilege while he suffered and served… [John McCain's America] is generous, welcoming, bold ... resourceful, confident... secure. She meets her responsibilities. She speaks quietly because she's strong. America does not boast ... she has no need to. ... America ... has no need to be made great again because America was always great." M. McCain. "John was ... a man with a code. He lived by ... public virtues that brought strength and purpose to his life and to his country. He was courageous, with a courage that frightened his captors, and inspired his countrymen. He was honest, no matter whom it offended. ... He was honorable,... recognizing ... his opponents were still patriots and human beings. He loved freedom with a passion of a man who knew its absence. He respected the dignity inherent in every life, a dignity that does not stop at borders ..." G.W. Bush. "So much of our politics,... public life... public discourse [seems] small, mean... petty, trafficking in bombast...insult, in phony controversies and manufactured outrage. It’s a politics that pretends to be brave and tough, but... is born of fear. B. Obama.
9
Mr Egan thinks he understands Trump voters. He doesn't. He merely reveals his own ignorance. The lady who lives in the apartment below me is a retired legal secretary. I formerly belonged to an allied health profession and my friend Bob lives in Dallas and appraises shopping malls for a living. We are all Trump voters. There are ladies who live in my apartment complex who voted for Mr Trump but tell their husbands that they voted for Secretary Clinton. Both Bob and I have degrees. Mine is in Chemistry, Bob's is in Design and Architecture.
You are way off base, Mr. Egan. The only thing that your article clearly reveals is your patronizing attitude.
13
@John Murray
Mr. Murray, as an honest and true question; would you please explain why it is you still support Mr. Trump.
12
@John Murray Unless Trump wins the next election by a landslide, he still won't match Obama's electoral accomplishments or his popularity. So
Why do you feel the need to lie to your spouses about who you voted for? Now, I don't get that. I thought you liked people who told it as it is.
5
@ccmoll
First, you must stop believing the attacks on President Trump that you see and read in the media.
Then, assuming that you have a work history, you should think back to the time when you had an unpleasant but effective manager or supervisor. President Trump is that person reincarnated.
Mr Trump gets things done. He does what he says he’s going to do. North Korea has stopped shooting missiles over Japan and exploding thermonuclear devices. Unemployment is at an all time low.
Start thinking for yourself. Stop believing the media. If you agree with me, then vote Republican this November and in 2020.
PS. Vermont is known for its freethinkers. I hope that you are one
The secret to cracking Trump’s base is much simpler than Tim suggests. It’s embracing bowling, not furtively and alone but joyously and in groups. And beer.
Trump remains wildly popular among Republicans, the economy is going gangbusters with working-class and middle-class wages rising (as even the Times now reports), and people are strutting more than they did with more folding money in their jeans. The economy is largely what is moving Trump’s base, although less stultifying regulation, lower taxes, a harder line on open-borders and foreign policy successes play their parts, as well. And the recognition that ALL of that goes away with a return to power by Democrats.
5
Trump's base is already cracked; every single one of them.
3
And this is why Mitch Landrieu is the right person to beat him. Who better to appeal to the aging white southerners? Sanders, Harris or Booker would only exacerbate the situation.
2
Though it would certainly be nice to think the “dyed in the wool” supporters of the current occupant of the Oval Office has a limit...but please, they’ve been getting lied to and insulted all along...and remain. Whatever support recent polls convey eroded will spike up once he returns with another rally and really really promises that Mexico will pay for his wall. These hopeless folks expect less of themselves than they will ever of him.
3
Sorry. Any constituency that gleefully extracts pleasure from the abuse and suffering of others — but recoil and howl when they experience but a taste of the same themselves — deserves no quarter or empathy from me.
19
@Jonathan Bates - It is actually a bit worse than your comment suggests. Schadenfreude - enjoying an adversary's discomfiture - is the least harmful aspect of Trump's followers. Too many of these people follow him with the greatest anticipation that he will cause harm to any group they resent or fear.
7
@Steve... point taken, and well-stated.
Keep dreaming. I talked to a former liberal Democrat from NY who graduated MIT and CalTech. I've always been impressed with him. Last week he said, "Trump is my hero." Then he explained how everything bad that it's been reported that Trump says and does is all deliberately misrepresented by the media.
Good luck with people like that.
14
@David No one need read/watch it in the 'media'. One only need to watch him on video. Any semblance of decency, cognition, empathy, understanding is replaced by his constant lying, tweeting (who fires the secretary of state by tweet??), name calling & bullying. Just listen to him speak, and if you don't come away thinking he's an inarticulate, lying idiot, you haven't been listening.
5
@David Trump has brought racists out of the closet all over America. But fear not, we will remember who they are and what they voted for.
1
Honestly, why are we still wasting our time gaming out whether and when Trump’s base will defect? Let’s focus on the independents who flipped for Trump and on running the Republicans out of office in November. There always was and always will be a sizable group of people rooted in prejudice and ignorance. It’s a lost cause and not worth analyzing after awhile if it takes away from solving the issues for the rest of us.
17
Trump will be unable to forego the ego boost of letting the marks know that they've been had.
2
"...ultimately even Social Security or Medicare. "
In truth, these are the primary reasons the tax cut. For decades the core Republican policy mandate has been to run up huge deficits and then use the resulting debt as an excuse to cut "entitlements," meaning SS and Medicare. The Republican "disdain" for debt during Democratic administrations was just a tactic - a temporary lull for some transparent (to those paying attention) pandering to their ignorant base.
11
Still scratch my head on the appeal that Trump supporters saw in him in certain areas of the country.
Trump is a mean spiteful Mr. Douglas from Green Acres. Everything he stands for is what Hooterville citizens despise. Uncanny that Mrs Douglas was almost from the same region and accent as Melania Trump.
The policies he trumpeted were and are window dressing towards the uninformed who get some of their news from banner headlines from the National Enquirer. Don't believe I'm breaking any new ground, but many Trumpsters saw Don the Con as a great white hope. Eight years of the dark guy with the funny name was enough. " Its our turn now." Here's a news flash , The country ain't going to get any whiter. Just so happens the his supporters are afraid of that scenario and or want to stand by Trump the Charlatan, hoping The Wall or ANY wall delays the inevitable.
13
The fact that the hard-core MAGA supporters are waking up (after three years of this bozo's non-stop campaigning) is great news. We are all so sick of his whining and complaining and lying and blaming everyone else. For many of us he was a joke from day one and I didn't think he would win a single state so it shows how clueless I was in my liberal bubble. But for people who actually believed in him, imagine how painful it must be to finally admit he was making fun of them all along and just using them to enrich himself. One by one, entitled older men who abused women their entire lives are losing their status and jobs and for that alone, Trump deserves everything that's coming to him. But he's an equal opportunity abuser, treating everyone horribly so bad karma is now coming at him from all directions.
9
Poor innocent Tim pretends to be surprised that Donald Trump speaks his own mind roughly and gruffly. How can this be news to Tim's virgin ears?
Yes, the voters of America KNEW that this President was coarse and opinionated as any seventy-year-old businessman is likely to be. What a shock!
Before we find out which shoe strings break first in the Trump household, the dedicated Hard Left might as well admit that they can never understand the reason this man outworked Hillary so successfully and defeated her at a game she thought she had mastered.
Every week the progressive media tell themselves, ''We'll get the thing that gets rid of Trump NEXT week, right?'' and then Omarosa or Woodward or that week's stripper blows up in their faces.
This repeated scene of the Left smoking a cigar that blows up in their face is the most fun aspect lof being an American these days.
But does this comment get me banned from Twitter and Facebook now?
8
Only if they ban meaninglessness inanity.
4
@L'osservatore Probably not. But we can fondly, even desperately, hope that it does -- for your sake, and ours.
I come from hillbilly stock.
It's tempting to underestimate us.
Call us stupid.
Make fun of the way we do things.
Take us for granted.
Use us to get the dirty work done - as Trump is so obviously doing now.
The thing that rich elites like Trump don't realize is that they are actually dealing with a resilient and intelligent group of people. Not necessarily Trump supporters, but hillbillies as a group are resourceful in a way that Trump's ilk cannot comprehend. That is why he won't see it coming when they take out the trash and leave him in the dust.
35
Trump is the symptom, his supporters are the problem.
12
I'm not sure what it would take to convince The Criminal-In-Chief's core supporters they're being played for suckers. Willful ignorance is powerful, almost as powerful as bigotry and fear and his base is completely ridden with those diseases.
The Criminal knows exactly how to use their sickness with dog whistles and slogans. They deserve him. Deport them all to Mar a Lago and build a wall around them.
13
Anyone who enables this obvious clown needs to do some serious introspection.
Trump is a Category 6 disaster that just keeps on giving.
11
Notice how the author sees 'getting to Trump's base' as dividing them and souring them on Trump, NOT actually addressing any legitimate concerns they might have. Sometimes it seems like the Democrats willfully don't want the Trump base to have good jobs, intact families, and decent lives. I truly believe that. It's all about the transition from Old America to New America. Anything that helps Trump voters helps Old America, which many Democrats literally hate.
8
@david Old America? Like the one I grew up in? Where women couldn't hold certain jobs & needed a man to co-sign any/every loan? Old America where the classifieds had columns that said, "Whites only need Apply? Old America where country clubs & hotels could say, "No Jews Allowed"?
Ah yes, the good 'ole days --- spare me.
14
@David Yes, many of us would have had to face insurmountable obstacles in Old America - blacks, Latinos, women, LGBTQ. Naturally we don't want to 'return' there.
1
@Shayna
classified ads for Women
Blue Laws in Virginia that Outlawed many stores from being open on Sunday.
There remains a quizzical group of GOPers who somehow cling to the belief that progress-as-they-define-it is being made, AND either that it doesn't matter that there's a madman in the WH or that the amply apparent madness is really just part of DiJiT's cunning master plan.
Like the downstream townfolk in Huck Finn, they will be slow to admit their folly, unless a mushroom cloud appears on the horizon to disrupt all that 'progress.'
2
Looks like the headline was blown up by the last paragraph. Seemed like a good idea before the writing was finished, but then reality set in. If the democrats fail to at least take the house this November, it's no longer the president who's at fault, but my fellow Americans.
4
I'm not sure I understand; I need to feel sympathy for people who voted en masse for Trump and continue to support him despite his policies - which will hurt them the most - and his disdain for them?
7
The NYT columnists are the one should "get a clue." Most people did not vote for Donald Trump. They voted against Hillary Clinton, a corrupt, entitled career-politician who represented everything they despised in Washington D.C. and its lecherous tentacles.
5
@John Jabo You have a point, however in rejecting Clinton they chose someone even more "crooked." Those are the voters who can swing the next two general elections.
2
@John Jabo: Your hated for Hillary Clinton got you a President that makes Hillary look like a saint. Feel good now that you put Hillary Clinton in her place?
15
I don't "hate" Hillary Clinton or anyone else. I just don't like crooked politicians, be they named Hillary or Donald. I was proud, however, to vote for Bernie Sanders.
6 recent polls have Trumps approval at 36-37%, the lowest yet after rising to 54% 2 months ago. 58% disapproval is a record too.
Nike online sales are up 30% after the Kaepernick ad.
Willie Nelson has endorsed Beto O'Rourke.
Trump warns hurricane will be "tremendously wet," which makes him really smart.
When he says "incredible" he literally means unbelievable.
11
This is one of the more well-written, coherently laid out opinion pieces I've read in some time. The lack of a shrill tone brings out the arguments that the writer makes, and is all the more powerful for it.
14
In another article it says that Democrats tend to know their candidates much, much more than Republicans or Independents, which implies that people who support Trump and vote against their own interests are basically those "low-information voters" who probably just go and vote "R" straight down the ticket without knowing their positions on anything. They've been told over and over by Fox that Democrats will turn the country Socialist and destroy their economy and that's all they need to know.
Also, take a look at statistics on functional literacy in the US: "Approximately 32 million adults in the United States can’t read, according to the U.S. Department of Education and the National Institute of Literacy. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development found that 50 percent of U.S. adults can’t read a book written at an eighth-grade level"
Many of Trump's supporters may be functionally illiterate adults who get their news solely from sources like TV and their friends.
22
after denying that the house is on fire until the last moment, a person finally realizes that all the smoke WAS a signal after all. regrettably, it's too late, the house burns down. everything is ashes and nobody learns anything.
4
When the mask of deceitfulness continues to be stripped off this president, the number of ardent (aka cultists) followers will significantly diminish. The more he tweets to defend wrongful actions, the clearer the picture of deceit and incompetence becomes. Time is on the side of the reasoned.
10
As long as Trump’s base gets its news(?)from Fox and friends and other right wing news outlets including tweets from the tweeter -in chief his 35% support will remain rock solid.
10
He’s now insulting them? No. He has ALWAYS insulted them. They are the swamp he is trying to drain. They didn’t get his duplicity, many still aren’t. It will be really hard for them to admit they were conned.
10
No...get out!
Does this mean that people are finally catching onto Lonesome Rhodes?
3
When the mask of deceitfulness continues to be stripped off this president, ardent (aka cultists) followers will significantly diminish. The more he tweets to defend wrongful actions, the clearer the picture of incompetence becomes. Time is on the side of the reasoned.
3
The Abraham Lincoln quote, though apt, is apocryphal. It is found nowhere in his collected works - https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/.
2
He has insulted them before. Too many of them are simply too clueless. A few of them might get it, but not enough.
For proof of this watch Jordan Kleeper's interviews with people waiting to get into a Trump rally on YouTube. He talks to the people about why they support Trump. It is like a person talking to a piece of cement. It is almost as discouraging as a shopping trip to Walmart.
9
Trump was a successful candidate against Hillary Clinton because she was Hillary Clinton: a privileged elitist who equaled Trump's contempt for the little people. Next time offer us real change agents instead of establishment Democrats.
9
@Rocketscientist, Hillary was not born to wealth like Trump, who then skated through six bankruptcies, sticking it to his investors.
35
Dream on, Mr. Egan. Trump's base might not all be thrilled with him, but they hate brown-skinned people more. And as long as he tells them that, as whites, they are the "real" Americans, they'll live with being called "dumb Southerners".
What Mr. Egan is missing is that while no one likes to be on the receiving end of insults, there is a hierarchy of hatred in this country. And with whites still the voting majority, on top of this hierarchy is race and ethnicity. Not far below that is religion. Regional geographic slurs are quite far down on their list of grievances.
So how Trump voters interpret his slur against them is this: "you might be dumb Southerners, but you're my dumb Southerners, and I have your back, against all those terrible brown people." This is the message they take away.
Trump doesn't need to lift a finger for one single person in his base. In fact, his policies have hurt them terribly, and they know it. But they really don't care. Because they got the one thing they wanted for their vote - a "president" who tells them that neo-Nazis and the KKK are some very fine people. That as whites, they are the only citizens whose rights and civil liberties matter. That darker skinned people should live as second-class citizens in this country. And everything Trump has said, everything he's done since taking office, has reinforced this message.
Trump's base pulling away from him? Don't bet the rent on it.
57
Sadly, I just might agree. As I just wrote in my opinion, after 8 years of the dark guy , many of those Southerners feel.. it's our town now.
5
You’re questions of whether the tea party was deficit motivated, or will lose coverage under Obamacare, are irrelevant. Obama was the motivation of the tea party “patriots “ opposition. They may have publicly raged against the deficit, it is was Obama’s deficit, thus the opposition. The same can be said about Obamacare. Some these, astute individuals, actually love the ACA, but detest Obamacare. They are easily duped and Trump is counting on this fact to further the far right agenda. Remember white nationalism is the cause Trump and his supporters are behind. Everything else are merely details.
5
The "Voice of Saruman" is failing. Trump can't sustain the illusion. He's going to take the Republican establishment down with him. Get your popcorn, people!
5
Half of the American population that voted for Trump were not dumb southerners, or aging white people. That's 2 out of four people around you today. Take a quick look around you. You all are going to have to come up with better things to hope for.
5
@Daphne Sanitz It was about 20% of the population, and almost three million fewer votes than the decreed loser got.
4
It’s about time that some Trump supporters realize that we are dealing with a pathological liar who is at times delusional and incapable of steering the country properly. Without having his staff needing to step in to prevent crisis after crisis we would already be in a critical and dangerous situation, internationally speaking . I’m hoping we won’t need a disaster or a catastrophe to wake up the rest of his supporters …
How many times can the occupant of the oval office lie to the American people and still have even a shred of credibility?
Maybe Trump supporters need to stop focusing on the past, and instead of mattacking Obama look carefully at what is attacking our country from within this very moment. Donald Trump has “clear and present danger” and “national security threat” written all over him . If indeed some of his supporters are starting to see the menace that he is to the country, it’s a great relief to the rest of us who already see.
8
Lately this paper has been writing a lot about the Great Recession and actions taken by the Obama administration to quickly reverse course. I have read a lot of the comments to those articles, and it has given me a new perspective on people who voted for Trump. While I still believe there are many who are filled with hate and willing to believe anything Fox tells them, there are also many who just couldn't bring themselves to vote for Hilary. She was part of the administration that, as many see it, gave money to billionaires while "regular" people lost everything. I believe that Obama et al did what seemed sensible after studying the Great Depression, but hindsight is 20/20 and maybe more money should have gone to keeping people in their homes. The fact that the money was paid back by the banks is irrelevant. For most Americans, their home is their biggest asset. Too many regular Americans have still not recovered, and that is something to be angry about. I get it. But now they need to prove they are not hateful bigots and vote to keep this maniac in check. Please. For the love of America.
27
And Obama did not investigate and prosecute the Wall Street Banksters.
11
@Tullymd
Meant to say that, too. I have been feeling the same way. It's not right.
@MJThe bank bailout was Bush, not Obama. Obama did the bailout for automakers.
4
Most interesting to me will be all those denying voting for Trump in 6 months, or a year. That SHOULD be most of my Neighbors, but that will never happen. THEY live in their own FOX alternate universe. Seriously.
16
The Freedom Caucus and the Tea Party are the biggest hypocrites, starting with Ted Cruz and Mitch McConnell. As if any of the Tea Party or the Freedom Caucus care about balancing a budget or taking care of those who need help.
They represent tons of poor people in their States, yet they vote against the ACA, designed to help these people and vote for the sham of a Tax Reform bill. Their donors are what matter. Not the poor voters whose very lives will be destroyed by these selfish, hypocrite men. Of course they are only two Republicans that I name. There is not enough space to name all the rest. And this would included everyone in the Congress, the Cabinet and The White House
Let''s see how Sarah Huckabee-Sanders lies her way out of the latest news. Paul Manafort willingness to confess to Mueller.
Hopefully more to fall in this crazy Administration.
23
So what is the "secret" promised in the headline? The final paragraph (and the final sentence) contradict it.
5
It remains a wonderment to me how so many poor people can vote for and support politicians who routinely enact policies that hurt them. WAKE UP, Republicans ARE NOT your friends.
13
@Gary Bernier
At this point in my life, I’m not sure if any politician is our friend.
Al Franken was our friend. I submit that Senators Warner, Warren and several of their ilk are our friends, too.
3
Trump base:
Running up the deficit to provide services to all Americans? How dare you (especially if you're the first black president)!
Running up the deficit for the further enrichment of you and other gold-plated friends? A-OK -- making America poorer again!
18
Maybe some Trump voters are starting to tire of his constant, unproductive, exhausting drama. He doesn’t do his homework of learning and reading documents and listening to experts. He gets energized only when an issue is all about him. How dare anyone suggest a president should be concerned that 3000 or more US citizens died in Puerto Rico? Trump goes on the warpath, and to him the issue is all about his own public image. He doesn’t admit to any accountability to anyone. He also absurdly assumes he is more clever than those around him, when the facts look otherwise. Trump is in many ways his own worst enemy; he can’t keep his mouth shut even when it’s in his own interest to do so. He may fire Sessions (of whom I am no fan). But I suspect Sessions is smarter and more disciplined than Trump, and may find a way to avoid being a fall guy for Donald.
17
As a redneck, I resent the s inability of Trump's crony to differentiate between rednecks and hillbillies. The Attorney General hails from low-lying southern Alabama, where the highest measurable elevation might be at the summit of the landfill in Gulf Shores. To the extent that a highly educated Eagle Scout must be gratuitously insulted because of regional prejudice, it would be nice if Roger Stone could at least get his terminology correct.
16
@Rushton that's right, don't mess with "LA"!
"He has tried mightily to destroy Obamacare"
That long predated Trump.
Sure, he's never helped, but then he's so ineffectual that he hasn't really hurt either. Damage done was done by the Republicans who are so proud of themselves for controlling him, like the brag list of Anonymous in the recent editorial.
Don't be distracted from the real enemies by lots of noise about Trump. He's the clown show, but he's not the real danger.
35
From Trump's GOP convention speech:
“We are going to be considerate and compassionate to everyone. But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens."
If Trump voters haven't figured by now how bogus this claim was, they have only themselves to blame.
19
Talk about “hitting the nail on the head!!!”
10
The ''base'' voted out of tribe, for tax theft and for extreme radical right wing judges. ( to essentially overturn/neuter Roe)
- that is it.
The base has now realized that they have voted against themselves yet again (even more so this time), because tribe can no longer overcome the numbers of demographics, the tax theft haul they got was meager (to say the least) and the judges they got/will get, are going to TAKE AWAY even more things from them. (like health care, education, their environment, their jobs, everything)
OF COURSE, people are starting to get a clue that Democrats are NOT running against them, but FOR them (as well as everyone else) to equally and Progressively (tax wise) partake in the economy.
It is showing up at the polls, for special elections and in particular for primaries, where longstanding incumbents are being turfed out.
The United States is a decisively center left country (even Socialist in many ways - according to EVERY Progressive idea that polls) and is finally showing up at the ballot box.
Must be all of those women that are fearless in their positions and will take over to make this a better country and world.
They have me vote.
36
Not so much. As long as this group feel that the people they hate, e.g., minorities and the "undeserving poor" are hurt worse than they are, they will stand with Trump.
8
Perhaps we could start by disenfranchising his voters. They’ve very clearly demonstrated their inability to resist mainipulation by bad people, so we need to save them from themselves by removing their right to vote. I’m only being partially facetious.
8
We haven't tried it much, but there's probably only one thing that will peel off Trumpers from Cult 45 and that's ridicule. Outrage doesn't seem to have much clout, but pure 24/7 ridicule highlighting the buffoonery of our narcissist-in-chief and his coterie of self-serving toadies might work. I don't mean satire - lots of that. But how about the "news of the day" .... tweets, rallies, rages, backbiting, etc. ...... as exercises in pure farce? We've all heard the expression of pundits when describing the events of the day, saying "you just can't make this stuff up!" Sure you can. There's a department the basement of the EOB (Dept. "F", for "Farce") cooking up the latest scam as we speak ...... those who come up with real whoppers get bonuses. The guy who came up with all those coal miner jobs 'saved' got a three-day pass to Bermuda for two; the woman who dreamed up the "Fantastic Success" of the response to Maria in Puerto Rico got a new bicycles for her kids. One of the Department's superstars came up with the "we are safer" line about North Korea. He got promoted to Farce IV. The criteria for this department's "success" on any day is twofold: 1) the latest Quinnipec poll tallying how many Trumpers fell for it, and 2) the increase in the decibel level on MSNBC.
4
Given the large increase I needed to make to my payroll withholding this fall, when my employer said review it, since the tax cut changed the withholding tables, the reckoning may come next tax season, when some Americans are surprised to find they owe taxes.
13
A successful democracy requires a well informed public,which we do not have. This is deliberate.
140
@Cassandra. It's not deliberate. It's due to an education system that has degenerated into babysitting out of control kids and teaching basic English. Added to the fact that most people seem to go to social media and talk radio to get their "facts" we are dumbing ourselves down. Put down your phone and pick up a book or a newspaper. I don't agree with much of what this paper advocates, but I need to hear it.
4
Agreed, I don't agree with almost all the nonsense this paper prints, but, sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised.
That's why I will continue to pay their subscription fees.
2
While seeing even hairline cracks in Trump's base of support is a welcome development, I can't help but come back to a conclusion that I don't see much discussion about since there's really not much to say or analyze about it: many of Trump's supporters are just jerks. I use the word "jerk" because the ones that more aptly describe the mindset can't be printed in a family newspaper, or comments section. I am of course referring to a group of people who cheered for the Iraq War without being able to find the theater of conflict on a map or knowing what a Sunni or Shiite was. "I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you the difference between I-raq and I-ran." the song goes....but let's have a war anyways! The same people who cheered at a 2012 GOP Primary debate at the mention of someone having to DIE because they don't have health coverage. The same exact people who have tried to kill an admittedly flawed Obamacare program without anything lined up to replace it, simply because it would hurt (badly hurt) Americans it perceives as enemies. I could go on all day, but you get the picture. Some people are just jerks and sadists. If there's something sold to them as tough, damaging or deadly to people other than them, they are on board. Trump knows this...and it's been his firmest base of support all along.
124
It's telling dogs don't like Trump, they are fantastic barometers of a person's basic nature. Children too. You never see Trump with his grandkids, nor his son. He's a horrible human being, and I find it extremely sad that so many voters are such abmismal judges of character. Fortunately they are in the minority. Tragically they makeup a large percentage of voting Republicans. It is good some are waking up. Gullibility is not a measure of intelligence, but maturity and wisdom. Cynicism too, it's the tainted flip side. Let the GOP keep the cynics. And the Trump voters slowly waking up, we'lll welcome you to the fold of wanting and deserving a respectable leader, and a better Anerica. Thank fully we're the majority. We need to keep the cancer from spreading, apathy may kill us. American's most definitely need to participate in voting, and desperately need to learn how to discern!
41
And narcissists don’t want dogs or children around because they don’t want to share any of the attention of bystanders.
1
Trump's base existed before Trump and they will continue to exist after Trump. Perhaps in his absence a smarter and more capable puppet will ascend and then we will all be in serious trouble.
Democracy only works if there is an informed electorate that participates in the voting process. I admit I haven't done my part in the past. I swear to God I have learned my lesson.
37
Can't agree more re getting rid of Trump. However, When I rant Impeach Him, my husband reminds me of the fact that then we get Pence, and that is terrifying. While we wouldn't be bombarded by the daily rankings of a lunatic, we would be at the mercy of someone potentially more dangerous as he's a player who might actually be able to move along his sick agenda. Quite a Catch 22. So let's all get out and vote in November as that seems to be our only hope of digging out of this mess.
16
Every good con artist knows that the best quality of a good mark is the unwillingness to admit they've been conned and suffer the embarrassment of that admission to family and friends.
74
@Dano50 But shouldn't a good con man know when the game has run its course, and it's time for him to move on? (in this case, to move back to his gilded tower in New York).
4
NYC will not be a welcoming place for little Donnie. We didn't like him before; just imagine what it will be like after his attempted reign of the nation.
3
Absolutely true!
The "Southern Strategy" has led to a hand off of power directly to the former dixiecrats who bolted from the Democratic party. Trump hates everyone except himself.
14
Trump voters, like Bush 43 voters, are not swayed by stats and other data. You mention abortion rights, immigrants, and kneeling at football games and they are onboard. They live in fear, because of Fox News, and they look toward American dictators to protect them. GOP voters rarely connect the economy to their bad conditions, although it is clearly GOP policies that put them in a hole.
45
@Anthony Before the election all we got is how DACA folks are valedictorians and Trans-folks are the best. We know there is more news than that. Take a look at the NYT front pages in 2015 and 16. Refugees will save us and illegals more than pay for themselves. Sounds pretty similar to Trump's quote of "Mexico will pay for the Wall.".
4
Reminds me of what I heard on Fox News last night, Tucker C "interviewing" a guest, refusing to allow more than 5 words uninterrupted because the guest was saying something true about the administration.
They still ain't listening.
59
@Kenneth Brady They listen to react and not to learn.
5
If you think Republicans, who have denied Obama a supreme court pick, and who are limiting voting rights, and who are packing the Judiciary from the Senate where they control a majority in the senate have less votes cast for their majority than the democrats, and who have ballooned the deficit, are above cruelly manipulating the emotions of poor and working class whites against their financial and democratic interests to enrich themselves and others like them, then you are not paying attention. Look at Juul, a business that has made a ton of money making addicts of children, is that right? No, but it made an unscrupulous few a lot of money at the expense of everyone. That is the Republican game plan. Bait and Switch! and they are patting each other on the backs and laughing at the Rubes, "We fleeced 'em again!" "Thank God for Abortion and Racism or the Democrats might actually make it harder for me to own a fourth home as they decrease inequality, pay the debt off, and make us a better nation. I am after all a "Job Creator" and next to God Himself.
8
Trump's adoring fans will always find a way to excuse his abhorrent behavior. As he himself has said, he could shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose a single supporter. The usual argument they make is that he was "just kidding".
What is becoming clearer and clearer in the United States is that the people that support Trump couldn’t care less about who he is or what he says, how little he can do for them or how politically dangerous he is.
No these Trump lovers will not go away because he represents for them their hatred for immigrants, people of color and the "liberal elite". They don't mind his 4500 lies in office, his sexual abuse, his destruction of true alliances in favor of Russia, his criminal dealings with money launderers..they absurdly think he is "against the system" that makes their lives miserable. Trump is a symbol of their frustration born of fear, disappointment and yes, racism and xenophobia. Trump knowingly exploits this rage and the lowest of human sentiments.
The Republican Party depends on Trump's base and will do nothing to turn them away no matter how damaging Trump is to our nation. However, the Republican Party is a minority party that has taken power through corrupt electoral practices with proven massive Russian support.
The only way to rid our nation of the Trump/GOP Scourge is to get the majority of Americans who are witnessing Trump's contempt for decency and honest to the polls to fight for the survival of our democracy.
41
Many people have compared Trump's remarkable ascension in popularity to that of the character, Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, played by Andy Griffith in the movie, "A Face in the Crowd".
In the movie produced in the late 50's, the character of Lonesome Rhodes foreshadowed the political career of Donald Trump - both achieved massive popularity through television and by use of plainspoken rhetoric, calling out politicians with arrogance that seems, at first glance, to convey strength. Trump and the fictional Rhodes are womanizers and both are forced to pay off women who have turned against them. Both have revealed racist tendencies, and both are narcissistic men with no moral compasses to guide them.
Lonesome's downfall came about when he was recorded denigrating those who helped make him powerful: “This whole country, just like my flock of sheep. They’re mine, I own them, they think like I do. Only they’re more stupid than I am, so I got to think for them.” Sound familiar?
65
@Chris Wildman I saw that movie in October 2016 -- it was chilling. I have not felt the same about Andy Griffith since.
"Dogs, though known for their loyalty, can only take so much from one abusive human."
This shows Mr. Egan's lack of understanding of dog psychology.
Dogs can take an enormous dose of abuse and remain loyal to the owner as long as he feeds them.
Feed your fighting dog well, and he'll fight to death for your and your buddies' senseless entertainment.
It is almost unheard of for a dog to abandon their owners even abusive and neglectful ones.
Shall I trust Mr. Egan's 'analysis' of about 40mln diverse people who voted Trump?...?
4
@al. No. And that is the democrats problem. I didn't vote for trump, but in this part of the country I know a lot who did. You discount them and their values and needs at the democrats peril.
6
@al HRC won the popular vote by 3 million...trump got the WH because of fewer than 100K votes in 3 states...the electoral college chose him..
4
@Mitzi Until you can successfully amend the Constitution, you play by its rule book. If I hear this particular Democratic excuse for a loss caused by putting up the worst available candidate again, I will freak out. Under 'originalist' theory, the Electoral College shoiuld have never accepted Trump. But that's undemocratic. Imagine what you would have said if they had named John Kasich President.
I know Tim has been away for a while, but someone needs to let him know that disparaging the ~10% Independent Swing vote is s losing proposition.
It kind of seems like he is still working from the 2016 "Basket of Deplorables" playbook.
4
@Russian Bot
Independents are not in the Trump basket.
Trump calling Southerners "dumb hillbillies" is in what category exactly??
9
@Kay Johnson
Of course Independents are not in the Trump basket, that is why they are called Independents. However, this kind of back and forth name calling is what led to the Trump "Presidency" and repeating the same strategy but hoping for a different outcome is...
I don't understand what's changed. Trump was always insulting his supporters. Who needs a tell-all book to understand that?
As a general matter, if Trump doesn't respect anyone and fails to generate the respect of those around him. And by "around him," I do not mean the crowds at his rallies who do not know him on a day-to-day basis. The true story of whether or not Trump is respected is found in his near-total inability to inspire loyalty in his own people.
But specifically speaking about the relationship between Trump and his supporters, it was always abusive. The fact that Trump would openly state that his supporters would support him even if he murdered someone in broad daylight shows how little he thinks of them. What is it but insult when he goes before Christian evangelicals, unable to so much as READ the Bible correctly, claiming he's a "great Christian"?
Further, and as this article points out, Trump has also stated he loves "poorly educated voters." He's not merely talking about people who don't have some formal education. Who among his supporters would accept being referred to as "poorly educated" under any circumstances? Trump likes to take advantage of ignorance and considers his own base to be, in many cases, ignorant people. That's not ME saying it, our glorious leader said it himself!
And his conduct is consistent with his words. Why would he tell such ridiculous, easily detectable lies if he respected the intelligence of his base?
5
The recurring meme is that trump's base is primarily: white, southern, uneducated. Wrong.
His supporters, while maybe to a larger degree in the south due to its history, are not confined to the south - far from. Neither are they uneducated.
Take my husband and I for example. He, born/raised in Queens, NY, math degree, considered high achiever. Me, born/raised south GA, no degree, high IQ, also high achiever. Both tail-end boomers.
He is a staunch trump supporter. I despise trump and all he stands for. I (much to my regret) voted for Reagan. He, came to despise Clinton during his administration.
The catalyst for this change was his discovery of talk radio, dominated at that time by Limbaugh, and thus began the national brainwashing.
The genesis of our divergent politics can not be overstated and until is it fully recognized for what it is, the impact it has had on our national discussion, the fever that brought us to this point will likely continue to rise.
This coinciding with Fox (they no longer pretend to be news) and right wing media bullhorns like Limbaugh and his army of mouthpieces all over the country, have convinced a very large number of all Americans to believe the absurd.
The dishonesty, the nastiness, outrageous lunacy preached daily from these sources, undisputed and increasingly embraced by the republican party brought us trump.
Listen to the broadcasts from these sources if you can. Prepare to be floored. And you'll understand.
159
@Deb
And we can't ignore the strong unmistakable stench of bigotry and sexism that lies at the core of much of the 'conservative' media.
30
The Trump "base" said - "...anyone but Hillary...".
That's exactly what they got - - - anyone ---.
Maybe by 2020 some voters will realize that Trump is the
epitome of condescending, mainstream media, elite.
11
@Dry Socket. Let's hope the democrats don't take it for granted that they can run "anyone but trump" and think they'll win.
6
He's neither mainstream media (which is not a dirty word, btw) or elite.
1
So very interesting that you begin with Trump’s dog problem.
From Wikipedia: The dog was the first species to be domesticated by humans and has been selectively bred over millennia for various behaviors, sensory capabilities, and physical attributes. The archaeological record shows the first dog remains buried beside humans were from 36,000 years ago when humans were hunter-gatherers and not agriculturists – that is, when humans still had nothing to steal. Their long association with humans has led dogs to be uniquely attuned to human behavior.
In fact, while it’s as easy as pie for narcissists, sociopaths, or psychopaths to fool other humans, it’s almost impossible for them to fool dogs.
I strongly suspect that Trump’s problem is not that he doesn’t like dogs but that they don’t like him.
So maybe you Americans could just use the ‘Dog Test’ to flush out corrupt (self-interested) politicians in your country. You know, just invite your Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, or Supreme Court Justices to your homes and observe your dog’s reaction to them.
Note: It goes without saying that you must first arrange for the Secret Service to NOT kill your dog when they attack.
7
@OpinionBrazil I have often commented to people that you never see Trump around ANY animals at any time, apart from the time the captive bald eagle attacked him. I hadn't read that fact about dogs recognizing people on the Anti-Social Personality Disorder spectrum, but that has been part of my point. The fact that he can't empathize with humans or animals marks him as someone with ASPD to me. I think he is much more dangerous than most of us even imagine. A person who hates animals is seriously NOT a good person!
3
Mr. Egan failed to mention Trump's disgraceful reaction to John McCain's death, and the astonishing fact that Trump was dis-invited to McCain's funeral. Veterans have overwhelmingly supported Trump to this point, but his disrespect for a true American hero was the final straw for many of them. Even the highly conservative American Legion piled on!
50
@KMJ
Excellent point.
2
Woodward’s book, “fear”, will be impossible for even Fox to ignore.
In fact, I bet a fella who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. will finally break down and read a book cover to cover.
2
@Jean No, Donald will not read the book--he is having aides tell him what parts he might want to know about.
1
Just vote them out. Don't expect a thank you.
15
Understandably, you look for indications Mr. Trump is losing voters, that he will lose the next election, that he'll drag down Republicans with him.
So you refer to a poll.
But if we have learned anything from 2016, have we not learned polls are in the eye of the beholder?
There are other ways to take the political pulse of the nation: Listen to people.
I heard a soy bean farmer on NPR the other day say he'd lost $150,000 this year owing to Trump's tariffs and in the next breadth say he voted for Trump and would again.
That, unfortunately, is the truth about the Trump base.
For whatever dark and brain wormed reasons, they will be loyal to him until the barbarians have burned his bunker and likely even after.
22
Excellent point, Claudia.
The Trumpian cult of White Spite is impervious to reason, context and the big picture.
They crave their spite, and Donald lovingly feeds it to them morning, noon and night.
5
@Claudia
I sat yesterday with a hard core (highly educated) Trump supporter who admitted that his family soybean farm is losing big money in trumpy's Trade War.
But rather than discussing that, he went on sputtering about Nancy Peolsi and how she (personally) was going to destroy the economy if the GOP loses the House in November.
17
@Claudia Wrong. The polls of 2016 were pretty accurate. It was the interpretation of what they were telling us that was off. Clinton won the popular vote pretty much as predicted. Margin of error in polls allowed that Trump could win by the 80,000 votes total from a few key states that gave him the Presidency, but no one believed that margin of error would end up in Trump's favor. How could it, when he was such a lying, gross buffoon, and it was Hillary's turn to win?
Remember the saying "it's the economy, stupid"? Lol, we've allowed ourselves to become so stupid about how the economy works that millions of us bought into Trump and as someone who would make it significantly better. Actually, all he has done so far is nudge at trends started under Obama and bolstered in the short term by the same tired old trickle-down voodoo economics the GOP suckers folks with every time. Not a full two years into his term, and he's already set in motion the destruction of his own Trump bump. And, with the GOP's help, set the stage for the possible elimination of Social Security and Medicare; so far, we won't even get infrastructure rebuild or better health care out of it, either.
Also, don't forget that a significant part of Trump's base cares only nominally about the economics. They marched in Charlottesville, or silently sympathize. They want to impose their view on abortion on everyone. They think Trump will bring the End Days so they can be swept up to heaven in the Second Coming.
6
If by "status anxiety," you mean feeling looked down upon, made fun of, scorned, laughed at by the perceived other, then I agree, this is the primary reason people loved Trump. So, for sure, if he himself is now mocking them, and they're realizing they've been had, that could be huge.
4
I dont believe this article. Given Trump could “kill someone on fifth ave.” and not lose supporters, labeling Sessions as a “dumb southerener” certainly wont. I think you underestimate the depth of Trumps abject brainwashing of people who only watch Fox news. And dont doubt for a second that this is a brainwashing because common sense and ethics dictate Trump to be nothing but a modern day snake oil salesman with greed being his sole motivator. Thankfully the majority can easily see this. #Bernie/Avenatti 2020
6
The single dumbest thing Hillary did was referring to some Trump supporters as a "Basket of deplorables." This despotic, racist, narcissistic charlatan just one upped Hillary with the "Dumb Southerners." line and demeaning of Jeff Sessions. This coupled with the mounds of evidence to support criminal and treasonous behavior should finally bring this evil man down hard and fast. And none of this should be surprising to anyone as Trump's character was on full display throughout the campaign and for that matter during his entire adult life.
4
Wishful thinking.
3
"Trump clearly doesn’t have the bandwidth for the magnitude of his mendacity." I don't know how anyone could say it any more concisely or better.
It is quite a fascinating tale of massive ineptness.
The improbable President Trump brought his brash, thuggish, hack real estate developer skills and blowhard boss TV scripted reality show skills with him to the Oval Office. And this is the hand he plays, no matter the cards dealt to him.
So Trump flails away every day, ineptly free-associating domestic and international policy, insulting anyone and everyone to protect his fragile, warped ego, and issuing mostly spontaneous edits to suit his nostalgic preferences for the good old days of toxic coal, Mad Men behavior, and Dark Ages punishment and repression.
The cult of personality usually does wear thin, and many of us have been waiting for his cult followers to realize Trump is nothing but a sleazy con artist, making false claims and promises to close the deal, and put another notch in his sucker belt.
Trump's insecure bragging is insufferable, and I thought this might do him in sooner rather than later, since the working-class members of my big Irish family were highly attuned to and knee-jerk against phony braggarts.
So why does Trump have 40% popular support? I think because he is the only game in town that is entertaining, because in America, that is what politics is all about, and sadly, everyone in any other country knows this but us.
Give Trump the Gong!
5
The fact is that people on the coast have a different set of values than people in the American heartland. Coastal values are more measurable in economic terms- we want our kids to go to good schools, we want our kids in high paying jobs, we want to live long lives, and therefore want a good safety net to support the elderly. Very nice.
People in the heartland want good jobs and good school too. But they have a deeply held- at times downright religious- belief that being an American is more important.
A recent NYTimes article described a rust belt worker saying that although the tariffs might hurt his personal chances of employment he is willing to sacrifice that for the pride of America. An article during the campaign season, focusing on Paris, Kentucky focused on a Coal Miner who said that the economy is "secondary" to protecting the rights of the unborn.
Sacrifice. A word that has much more meaning in the Heartland than it does in Brooklyn.
5
@Neil
Shows how much fantasy is involved in being a trumpet. The unborn is an idea, the born is a reality.
7
@rainbow
Not to them.
@Neil Thank You! The coastal elites who write most of these letters exist in their own little world. They are arrogant enough to think that they are smarter than other Americans who must come around to their way of thinking. I rejected their way of thinking some years ago.
1
"In truth, economics will probably not move Trump supporters. Their vote for him was more about status anxiety in a changing nation than financial uncertainty."
In this, I think Egan has it backwards. Economic anxiety underlies all white working-class concerns. It is the fertile soil in which status concerns take root and grow. And authoritarian impulses, long submerged, rise to the surface. They all are then easily exploited by politicians like Trump.
9
The support for Trump had nothing to do with issues like the ACA and everything to do with race. White, lesser educated conservatives and some rust belt moderates were fighting against the inevitable browning of America that Obama represented and the Dems embrace. Just give it time. They will feel the pain of this presidency and the progressive point will be made and understood in Middle America.
7
"Since his election, he’s down 14 points among the “poorly educated” that Trump once professed to love, a CNN poll found."
But they also found this slide was almost all due to women turning against Trump, while the dudes abide. (apologies to "The Big Lebowski").
Turns out we have a pretty enormous gender gap when it comes to Trump. Plenty of men find everything Trump to be disgusting. But its looking like women are going to lead the way in the 2018 midterms.
21
@Look Ahead
I hope so.
Lead on girls!
2
I am kind of grateful that t rump is the one leading US down this rabbit hole. Had Jeb Bush been the candidate and been elected we would be seeing the same koch style policies but we would be seeing them enacted by someone who seems so ordinary, so believable.
t rump's very base base does not need to be "woke" to put him, and his party, back on their heels. The people who did not vote, or voted for him for reasons other that cult 45 devotion, (I love that line Cult 45.) are the ones whose awakening will help bring down this farce.
The awfulness of t rump is awakening those voters and those voters seem to be rising up in some pretty impressive numbers.
We the People must remember going forth that this did not start with t rump but he seems to be the only logical conclusion to the 50 years of so called southern strategy from the republican party.
Romney, McCain, Bush, Kasich would have all enacted the same policies, perhaps with less visible hatred and disdain, but results would pretty much be the same.
9
Trump's new offer to pay Mexico $20 millon, irregardless of the use to which it is put, will be the last straw for this ship of
fools. His wall, tumbling down, will take all of them with him.
14
The secret to cracking Trump's base is to nominate a candidate who isn't as corrupt as the Clintons.
4
@J. Waddell
Bingo
You really think that Trump is more honest than Hillary Clinton? Clinton was far more transparent when it came to her finances.
9
@J. Waddell I personally think Bill would have mopped the floor with Trump. Hillary has never been a skilled politician. But she isn't even remotely as corrupt as Trump. Which makes your point kind of silly.
5
Demos could have beaten Trump if they just respected the wishes of working class voters who don't want to have to compete with a tsunami wave of immigrants. Instead the Demos call people who want to limit immigration, RACISTS. That is an insult and does not address their issue with the impact of immigration on wages and the cost of resources like homes and schools. Just because they don't want to give up what they have does not make them racists. But, calling them racist does tend to make the Demos seem elitist so I can see why they are estranged from the Democratic Party.
16
@SwissMtDog, I don't get why the people who bawl loudest about immigration also reject all efforts to encourage family planning internationally.
9
@SwissMtDog Racism is not the opposite of elitism. It's the opposite of tolerance.
7
@SwissMtDog Working folks' wages have been stagnant since the eighties. I was waiting for them to realize this and realize it was the Republicans' doing but they let themselves be distracted by the claim that it's all the immigrants' fault.
Hard for me to believe that xenophobia played no role in that. Why was the concept of a wall so popular? It wouldn't keep out any of the fastest growing segment of the immigrants: Asians. The symbolism of walling off Mexico is quite powerful. And it smells racist to me.
5
Donald Trump does not deserve a dog. And all dogs deserve better than Donald Trump.
82
Trump insulted everybody from the beginning, even those who didn't realize it.
14
I don't think Fox News reports that Trump said "dumb Southerner" except to point it out as an unverified and partisan attack by Woodward and liberal media. Until and unless cabinet members or Fox News verify these quotes themselves, it's "he said / he said", and Trump voters will choose to believe their own media.
7
@Hope A couple of actual Republican politicians bristled at Trump's remarks. So some right-wingers believe it.
2
When you say “some of the most hard-core Trumpsters are starting to get a clue.” You imply that they are stupid and that you get to judge their intelligence. That condescension, I think, is the reason Trump is able to sustain an unbreakable solidarity with his base. It is the ammunition that enables Trump and his base to link arms in contempt for condescending mainstream media elites.
13
@Greg Larkin
While, to a certain extent, that is true - as was stated previously, to get thru to them loudly and clearly, repeat over and over that the trillion dollar debt Trump has created will hit them in Medicare and social security:
THEIR CHECKS WILL BE CUT!
MEDICARE BENEFITS REDUCED DRAMATICALLY!
IT'S TRUE AND WHAT WE HAVE TO LOOK FORWARD TO, BUT IT HAS TO BE SAID loudly AND often.
3
@Greg Larkin. The leftist reality that anyone who disagrees with them on any subject is a racist, uninformed deplorable may yet turn back the possible "blue wave" this fall.
the word stupid is not exist only for condescending to somebody, it is a common cultural and language to describe some person actions.
Whatever you feel, that deosn't change the reality, trump and supporters want to slay golden egg laying
goose , in this case USA.
I guess that Trump's racism gave 'white anxiety' a pause, and their ongoing support translated into a cult of personality, so that however much Trump cheats on his base, it is taken as the dogma truth; this is classic for folks that refuse to think for themselves, however counter to their interests. They won't accept that they are being defrauded in plain daylight by a con man, a fraudster whose social distance from them is insurmountable, and whose lying and cheating ways seem inbred since infancy (fed with a silver spoon). Poor U.S.A., being held hostage by someone who lacks scruples, and tolerated by republican thugs benefiting from his thoughtless 'largess'. Let this be a lesson for future presidencies, as too much power in one man's hand, a most dangerous and irresponsible endeavor, is abused relentlessly.
10
@manfred marcus: Trump shamelessly exploits what he believes to be an overwhelming position of advantage, which is what many Americans want the US to do in international relations.
1
On this I happily quote the prescient Eric Idle; from 2011 he had this to say:
It’s alternative scholarship. What’s wrong with teaching alternative theories in our schools? What are liberals so afraid of? Can’t children make up their own minds about things like killing and carrying automatic weapons on the playground? Bush was right: no child left unarmed. Why this dictatorial approach to learning, anyway? What gives teachers the right to say what things are? Who’s to say that flat-earthers are wrong? Or that the Church wasn’t right to silence Galileo, with his absurd theory (actually written by his proctologist) that the earth moves around the sun. Citing “evidence” is so snobbish and élitist. I think we all know what lawyers can do with evidence. Look at Shakespeare. Poor bloke. Wrote thirty seven plays, none of the his.
7
Rather than Cult 45 they should be called the "Victims Club". They see themselves as victims of immigrants. They see themselves as victims of globalization. They see themselves as victims of a changing demographic where they have to share power with non-whites. And they are victims of this but they have chosen to embrace their abuser. They must be getting something from trump that makes them stay loyal.
10
@Steve Trump reassures many that one needs no class at all to succeed.
6
@Steve
I guess if they identify as "Victims" then Democrats will finally pay attention to them.
3
@Russian Bot, perhaps they will, God knows the Republican haven't.
The useful, practical lesson here is to respect, be nice and relatable to those who may be different than us in some ways. Whether Christian conservatives, Southerners and/or high school dropouts, many who supported Trump are raising families, employed (or seeking employment) and want to better their lives. Place yourself as someone who wants to help and not block them, and who at least is willing to meet them somewhere in the middle.
I hope that for 2020 we have candidates who really care about mainstream Americans, as opposed to extreme right and left ones, which will allow us to move beyond Trump in 2021.
10
@Gian Piero: I'm very happy not to be raising a family with Trump posing as some kind of role model for children to identify with.
1
"Mainstream" candidates have no hope of getting the Republican nomination.
1
Thank you for an excellent read, and I like the phrase 'Cult 45' in reference to Trump.
Maybe some of his base leaving him finally understand that the man is strictly about himself 24/7 and their interests mean nothing to him except for political blustering. Or, maybe they are finally understanding, along with the rest of America and the world, that Trump is a friend to no man or woman.
29
The religious right want a dictator for a leader (like their god) who hates the same people they do. They believe in infinite forgiveness of their own sins, not love of neighbors who aren't carbon copies of themselves. Prying them away from a right wing authoritarian who makes their bigotry feel patriotic and their hatred righteous is probably impossible. Remove Trump and they will just fall for the next grifter waiting in the wings.
65
@Cherri The religious right is much less popular than it used to be. Notice their utter impotence on gay marriage. Now after their embrace of the utterly amoral Trump their true nature, which you describe so well, has become clear to a majority of Americans.
5
"They’ll stay with him only so long as they allow themselves to be easy marks for the insulting con of this presidency."
I love Timothy Egan's columns, but I am sorry I disagree with him on this conclusion. They can lose "everything" under his policies and I'd bet they will still stick with him. Why? Because he promises to hurt "those people" even more by stopping immigration from Mexico and from places like Syria with Muslim refugees. This IS why they voted for him and they will never abandon him unless they believe he has abandoned his immigration policy. None of the other issues matter to these folks. Should Vladimir ring the U.S. with his ICBM missiles tomorrow, I bet Trumpsters will just shrug....NOTHING else bothers them.
17
@Alfred Yul What you say is no doubt true of the most hardcore Trump supporters. He's already lost some supporters, he may well lose more.
Right now, he'd have no chance against a good opponent.
@Alfred Yul The base will stick with him as long as his administration continues with its anti illegal immigration and refugee admission policies and practices.
1
"The woke among the true believers is small."
I'm having trouble parsing this sentence. You're using "woke" as a singular noun or a trendy adjective with an implied noun (that is, "woke people")?
If the latter, then you need to recast the sentence, because you're surely not saying that woke people are actually little. If the former, then what is a woke?
4
@Graham Charles, it's okay to derive a word's meaning from how it is used in context. If you were angry or frightened by the article, that very fact gives away your political position. So, in context, let me define 'woke' for you as a sub-headline: "Crazy Town's 'Walking Dead', Healed by Civics Lesson".
@Graham Charles
"Woke" the latest in social awareness.
@Graham Charles,
Hello my friend.
Woke is the intellectual friend of BAE.
You’re welcome.
Trump is the symptom, but not the cause. The deeper problem is that dark money and lack of term limits have made both major parties deliver legislation and tax policy that serve the corporatists and oligarchs at the expense of the vast majority of working men and women. Until and unless either major party starts actually serving the American public again, there will be more Trumps and more trouble.
38
@James
Yeah, that and white supremacy a.k.a. 'racial grievance'.
The GOP has been playing that game with foot signals under the Bridge table for 50 years now.
Trump just simply showed his cards out in the open and when accused denied he was cheating.
3
@James Not one Democrat voted for the Republican Tax Heist. Not one Republican voted for Obamacare. Not one Democrat voted to kill Obamacare. Back in 1994 not one Republican voted for the tax increase on the high income folks. You know, the tax increase that gave us three years of budget surpluses.
So your claim that both parties are delivering the same tax policy is utterly false. Hey, I get that you'd like the Democrats to move to the left. Perfectly reasonable desire. But don't lie about where they are. They are not in the same place as the Republicans. These kinds of lies help the Republicans. If you're not a troll you don't want to do that.
7
I know Trump supporters in Kentucky, Massachusetts and the state of New York - they all have College degrees - they all have Masters degrees - they all have respectable professional jobs -
Trump supporters are in every state of America -
My friend who is a Trump supporter has said - Trump is obnoxious and he was wrong to say what he said about Senator John McCain - but - Trump is giving us (Republicans) what we want: jobs, tax cuts and most important: Supreme Court Justices - she continues to blame all the toxicity on the Media -
So - the only way to Crack Trump Supporters is to VOTE on November 6 - vote for the Democrats to become the majority in the House and in the Senate - to Freeze Trump / Pence / All Republicans who blindly follow Trump in Congress or in everyday life - FREEZE THEM ALL - So, can be together -
But - so, the rest of us can go forward - to work together as a country - Equally - to achieve building a healthy life / nation for ALL Americans -
Then - on Nov 6, 2020 - vote Trump / Pence out of office - replacing them with a Democrat who believes ALL Americans are equal - health care is every American's Right for ALL not just for a Few -
Let's Take Back Our Country - Nov 6, 2018 - and - Nov 6, 2020!
114
@Karen You are so right. So much energy and ink is spent on trying to convince those who are beyond being convinced. Honestly, who cares what they think? They obviously don't care what I think! Don't argue VOTE!
3
It is sheer ego to think that the guy treating others like garbage is magically going to treat you like some king or queen.
Trump's character was completely readable with his lies that a sitting US POTUS was a foreigner from Africa. It was inarguable from day one that this was a huckster looking for his mark.
That, in a nutshell, ie Trump himself, was everything you needed to know.
I grew up in the Southwest- it is pitiful that for a couple of MAGA caps and a chance to yell yourself hoarse at some rally, you sold out to the guy who is pulling that cap hard over your eyes and about to rob you blind.
51
I have to wonder how long it will take for the Republicans in the U.S. Senate to realize -- as his base may be doing -- that this president has utterly failed, and that his nominee for the Supreme Court should not be confirmed or even considered as long as he is in office.
29
I know a few of these staunch Trump supporters. They are severely in denial. They are middle class with fairly decent pensions or well paid private sector or government jobs. They believe that reported low unemployment figures and high stock prices prove this administration's success. Another recession is most likely not going to affect them, just as they were not affected by the previous one. These people believe that attacks on Trump are attacks on America. They choose not to remember the virulent attacks on Obama (perpetrated by Trump himself). When disaster happens to other people it is those affected people who are to blame (hence their utter disrespect for the suffering of fellow citizens in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria). I can go on. These may appear to be generalizations but they are actually spot on accurate descriptions of the way these people think. Nothing will change their love for this circus master who reinforces their world view.
93
Trump’s “dumb Southerner” comment is likely to prove to be equivalent to Bill Clinton’s “Sister Soulja” moment, but in reverse.
2
"I love uneducated people." -- Candidate Trump
16
@Sky Pilot. As opposed to democrats that condescend and look down on them. You might want to try something like, "here are some facts you might not be aware of. Let's discuss them". Of coarse, you have to be willing to admit that there could be more than one way to look at issues and the left doesn't get that.
1
@Al Trump and his supporters do not deal with facts; they expressly reject them, making it impossible to have that discussion. And, of all the major media outlets Fox is the one outlet that almost never presents the facts or looks at issues from more than one way.
Who cares? Why spend one more column on the rabid 36 or so percent who -- from where I sit in the heart of Dixie -- still support the Liar in Chief. Trump bumper stickers on pickup trucks driven by old, white guys abound here. I live in a district that voted about 90 percent for a con man. Two reasons drive them -- greed and racism. That's it.
Better to spend digital ink on getting Dems and Independents to the voting booths come November. We need a blue wave to drown this pathetic excuse for an administration.
174
Identifying racism and misogyny among many older white men who voted for trump really hits the nail on the head. They are deplorable and irredeemable.
5
@John Longino, I wish I could "recommend" your comment 100 times. Not sure why you get it, and Tim, the bulk of the MSM, and the democratic leadership does not: the trump supporters are a lost cause. They are never coming back. All of this energy is as ineffective as the Jehovah's Witness and Mormons who peruse my neighborhood, believing that THIS time I will listen, THIS time they will convert me. Not going to happen. What the dems need to do is to get out the vote, campaign on foundational issues like public education and social security, send monitors into minority / heavily democratic districts to shut down GOP hanky panky, and if they win, claim a mandate-- aggressively. Once in power, they need to re-regulate the FCC, pass a new Voters Rights Act, establish federal standards for federal elections, and raise the darn House to a number above the 435 set in the 1900s! Positive action like this will render the trump cult obsolete. Caring about them under the present circumstances is as silly as efforts to deprogram Hari Krishna members were in the 1970s. Let them die, evolve on their own, stay in the cult, fade into the background. They are really of no consequence to We the People.
20
"It's like discovering that climate change is not a hoax when your town is under water, and all your commander in chief can do is throw you a roll of paper towels" is the best line in the newspaper I've ever read.
18
The three things that might change the minds of some of his base are losing healthcare, being called dumb southerners and his base realizing he is doing nothing about the opiod crisis. The rest of the items mentioned by the author will not make a difference. Too bad they will have to lose healthcare before they realize how bad their cult leader is.
12
Dear liberals. If all you offer is hatred of trump, open borders and abolishing ICE, get ready for more of the same. The democratic vision for America is as empty and devoid of ideas as trumps is mean spirited. Stop telling working class whites and everybody else that the economy is really, really bad and more illegals will fix everything and appeal to everyday people's self interest, not your left wing coastal prejudices that frankly have no appeal to regular Americans.
9
@Al: No Democrat wants "open borders" or believes that "more illegals will fix everything." Those are Trump lies brainlessly parroted by his followers. And not all liberals live on the coasts. Saying that is like saying everyone who lives in Idaho is a White Supremacist.
60
What Democrat is advocating open borders? "Abolish ICE" among elected Democrats (as opposed to other uses by the far left) means returning to pre-2003 border enforcement with more oversight. It does not mean ending border enforcement.
7
@Al
Dear Al, if all you offer is hatred of liberals, sucking wealth from the lower and middle class, and a president that explicitly supports white-collar criminals, get ready for more of the same. The republican vision for America is as empty and devoid of ideas as Obama was a man of high morals. Stop telling working class whites and everybody that the economy is really, really good, and that the problem is illegal aliens, and appeal to everyday people's self interest, not your right wing Midwestern prejudices that frankly have no appeal to regular Americans.
The Democratic party almost nominated a man that was an absolute champion of the little man--Bernie Sanders. We didn't do it--it's unfortunate--we lost to the establishment--but the vision of the Democratic Socialists is the one that should give working class people the most hope. We are tired of Wallstreet being unaccountable. We are tired of the establishment being utterly bogged down by obstructionism and cynicism. We want progress--not stagnation. We want things to get better--not worse. We want a bright future for our children--not one with such low social mobility that they succumb to nihilism.
I legitimately don't think most people realize what has caused most of this. It's almost entirely due to industrialization and automation. Even Marx--150 years ago, knew that capitalism and technology lead to insane wealth and income inequality. We just have to figure out what we will do in response.
5
Plutocrat Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, “not only will this tax cut pay for itself,” he said, “but it will pay down the debt.”
Is there a way to prosecute Mnuchin for gross incompetence when the tax cut ruins lives, again? While he sits it out with billions. Accountability?
53
Dear Mr. Egan,
Twenty-two months ago, I copied a sentence from one of your editorials, printed it in 36-point type, and taped it to the door of my office. The sentence:
"They (the white working class) will soon find out that Trump will treat them the same way he treated the suckers who signed up for his fraudulent university."
How "soon" is soon enough?
9
Within the next 30 days, expect to see indictments of McCabe, Strzok, Page, Comey, Rosenstein and others.
The American people do not like cheaters.
The Obama administration completely abused their power by first trying to plant their fake Russian collusion lies with a colluding media, FBI, and DOJ to try and cheat in the election then went in to harass a duly elected President simply because the Queen of Corruption lost.
The NYT may continue to just ignore and refuse to report on these developments, but they also must hide their own culpability.
Soon, they will no longer be able to avoid this by remaining silent.
The cat is out of the bag.
The amusing thing is, the Democrats were so convinced their cheating would lead to Hillary’s victory that they didn’t even bother to cover their tracks.
They put the cat in a wet paper bag.
And it woke up.
2
Please get back to us within the next 30 days to let us know when those indictments are handed down. Also what planet it occurs on.
35
A cat, sleeping in a wet paper bag, wakes up and finds itself in Vermont. Hillary Clinton is the least of it’s problems.
3
Your fanciful pronouncements aside, please stop referring to Trump as "duly elected. The people "elected" HRC for president by popular vote.
The Electoral College appointed Don the Con.
11
"dumb southerners" ... "hicks" ...
That's great!
Now if Democratic candidates can refrain from referring to "fly-over states", "deplorables", and how they plan to put coal workers out of a job maybe we can make some progress.
4
@J Jencks Exactly.
@J Jencks Democrats don’t need to put coal miners out of a job. Technology and improvements of the 21st century has already done that. And, since you’re all for mining jobs, will you and your kin be picking coal in hopes of getting black lung disease or drinking water mixed with coal ash? More power to you if stupidity floats your boat.
8
@f2usaciv. But I guess automation and the loss of jobs does mean we need more immigration? It's leftist double speak that is killing you guys. Another example. The left appears to care about the environment, yet they constantly push for higher immigration when that leads to more high co2 producing Americans. Explain how that makes any environmental sense?
He insults his base daily by telling them such absurd lies and conspiracy theories that only cultists would believe. He's a grifter and they are his marks. Will they tar and feather and run him out of town on a rail like their ancestors would have done when they realize he sold them snake oil?
9
Hi Tim: A recent poll for 2020, shows Trump beating all Democrats for President. Not sure your article is based in 'reality' but rather a 'puff piece' that Demcrats want to hear.
Voters like consumers may take years to change thier views (and sometimes never) so I would not hold my breath on cracking Trump's base. Or him getting a dog for that matter.
7
@JK
As much as I would like to see Trump's base erode, Mr. Egan wrote nothing to convince me that was true. When I read an op-ed piece in the NYT I assume that the author has something to say and is not just meeting a timeline to publish x number of articles a year.
1
JK,
And what poll is that? Any credible
Link? Or is it poll done in your head? Because the con man has lost approval in every single state since starting the term. Checkout morning consult for state by state approval.
Not to mention his party has lost or came close to losing elections they won by double digits less than 2 years ago. But delusions and denials are great for con man cult.
4
Why no analysis or ridicule of Log Cabin Republicans?
Milo Yiannopoulos of the alt. right and others of his ilk?
Minorities for Trump?
Are the above classes protected from insights or scorn?
3
An analysis of the psychology of Log Cabin Republicans would take more space than the Times would care to allocate to one columnist. A more conflicted group of people could not exist.
Honestly if I read one more examination of hard core Trump supporters I’m going to scream.
They are a minority in this country. Their support is NOT what won Trump the presidency, though it did get him nominated. He won because of the support of mainstream Republicans and Independents who deeply distrusted Hillary Clinton and because of the confines of our electoral college system that allowed 70,000 midwesterners to have more voting power than 3 million Californians. The Independents have turned on him, and the mainstream Republicans are getting what they want from him. Unless there is a legitimate GOP primary challenger in 2020 they will have to live with him.
The “base” promoted him within their party, the country as a whole dislikes him. His base voters may never change...I’m not sure they have to, he is deeply unpopular, and most likely will be a one term president.
40
And according to Michael Moore, only two (TWO!) votes per precinct in Michigan cost Hillary the election. Just two votes in every precinct. That’s enough to make you wonder if Russia WAS actually able to change some votes. Two votes per precinct wouldn’t be on anyone’s investigative radar. Michigan went from being historically blue to red by a measly two precinct votes.
4
@Frau Greta even if this was true the systemic issues with our electoral process are what allow a very small minority of voters to have such a big impact.
We have voters in Wyoming with hundreds of times more impact per vote than voters in California. This is true in the electoral college, this is true in the Senate.
If we had a true one man one vote democracy it would be FAR more difficult to manipulate elections on a national level. I do not speak for local politics, where corruption is easier to accomplish.
@Frau Greta Mikey Moore cherry-picks to sucker in his audience. In Detroit alone, more than a third of voting sites had more votes on the machines than voters: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/12/records-many-...
A full recount would have subtracted all those overvotes from Hilly’s totals.
States could opt out of Medicare Expansion. Should let them opt out of Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.
4
When Republicans finally make abortion illegal, and the first woman is put in prison, will they be happy? Will they create a special law enforcement branch to find women who had a miscarriage and see if they can prove that it wasn't a natural occurrence?
24
@Agnate They won't be happy until they see women returning to their old subordinate role en masse. Outlawing abortion won't do that, so birth control will be the next target.
2
Your scenario isn't hypothetical. I'm sure that more than a few women will be reported to the police by over-zealous hospital staff in red states.
Can we finally dispense with the fiction that Trump supporters are on board because of his savvy economic policy.
It's all about racism and spite. It always has been.
The people who claim "I don't care if he becomes a fascist dictator...look at all those stock buybacks" are just rich opportunists. They don't care about Trump (or anyone, really).
The true Cult of Trump members are there solely because Trump hates everything they hate. They are the type of people that would burn down their house, as long as they knew the flames might spread to a predominantly black or immigrant neighborhood.
20
Some have become resigned to hoping that the more he tweeted, the more he blustered, and the more he lied, so his base would regret the bargains they made: Trump and a tax cut; trump and a Roe-killing SCOTUS; Trump and an overdue military victory somewhere. This man's brain is fossilized. Only his ego is alive and channeling the walking dead.
3
We can only hope.
2
Those of us who are older white Democrats or Independents with college degrees have made the mistake of looking for a magic key to pry away Donald Trump’s adoring base of white, working-class followers.
The angry men and women supported Trump in the 2016 election, and they steadfastly cheer for him at lively, well-orchestrated rallies.
Timothy Egan correctly realizes that there is no single key to freeing the cult members from President Trump’s confident grasp. Merely pointing out that a vote for Trump and his party is a vote against the economic interest of a person of modest means is not enough.
It will require resistance on several fronts. Among the Trump areas of vulnerability are his cavalier taking away the healthcare protections of Obamacare and his arrogant willingness to insult followers in the South, in Appalachia, in the old Rust Belt states and in the Prairie states as being stupid losers.
Donald Trump’s often silent, but staunchly deferential, supporters in the Senate and the House are getting very nervous. So are Republican Governors across the country.
18
Well said. Keep it up.
6
Until the sort of people who write—and read—the NY Times’ Op Ed pages take a long, hard look at their own tendencies to buy into the “dumb Southerner” stereotype, our nation will continue to splinter.
And maybe that’s for the best. Staying together for the sake of the children doesn’t seem to be going too well for anybody....except Trumps and pundits.
5
The writer of this op-ed column wasn't espousing "dumb Southerner" stereotypes. He was merely repeating Trump's comments. Is it now divisive to merely call out Trump on his own words? Are we expected to just ignore them, even as he uses them to rile up his base?
1
I think that Trump supporters are prophetic. They know that the human race is inherently evil and needs to be extinguished before it infects the entire universe. I mean, what other species willingly destroys its own home and starves out 99% of its own while gazing longingly in awe of the !% living in lavish wealth? Trump, and his supporters know, its time to ravage all that is left and ultimately take down the entire planet so that all life dies - therefore protecting the rest of the solar system. They are selfless - they are- and we should thank them for helping end the reign of the most horrible awful selfish species to ever appear on the scene: homo sapiens. The other civilizations out there in the Milky Way will stumble upon our burnt out shell of a planet one day and be relieved they "dodged that bullet".
16
Its easy to get the attention of Trump fans.
1. stop making everything a racial issue.
2. stop trying to spend my money for me.
3. stop making the environment more important than anything else
4. start to talk honestly. (this is the hard one for liberals, who know they are always right)
9
@G. Agreed except number 3. The environment is important and should be the corner stone of the economy and our lifestyle. It is not mutually exclusive.
5
@G, agree that Fox News and most Trump fans frame the world through this lens, but many Conservatives:
1. Feel they are being discriminated against now that they are not superior economically or morally to minorities.
2. Want to cut taxes and government rather than having a coherent plan for improving America.
3. Refusing to believe scientists or experts on any fact that conflicts with their world-view.
4. Are not honest about tax cuts, replacement healthcare, or other actions that hurt the middle and lower classes.
Neither side has a lock on honesty or open-mindedness.
1
@G
The environment is more important than everything else. Your grandchildren can't live underwater or in the middle of wildfires. Your grandchildren can't live without food.
12
I have said all along that it's going to take some real pain to force the brainwashed low-info voters to realize what they voted for.
Don't forget: A majority of them support the Affordable Care Act, but hate Obamacare.
They hate lazy welfare moochers in coastal blue states, but they rely on food stamps and Medicare checks for family members with black lung disease.
They hate educated elitists, but complain when their regional hospitals close because the doctors move away.
They cheer that the stock market is going up (even though they don't own stocks), but oppose raising the minimum wage and then wonder why they can't live on their Walmart paychecks.
They love it when Trump stands up to China and Mexico with tarrifs, but then wonder why their factory cuts down to two shifts.
Yup, these are the voters who support Trump. We politely call the "low info" voters. But actually they're tribalistic sheep who can't think for themselves. They love fake professional wrestling, but disdain (and can't comprehend) real news from reliable sources. They love that Trump sticks it to everyone, but then wonder why their lives aren't getting any better. They're hypocrites who don't even understand their own hypocrisy.
In other words, they're not simply "low info" voters; honestly, they're not so smart. (And they'll hate me for saying this, but cheer when Trump says it about everyone!)
The only way to shock them into reality is for them to feel real consequences of their votes.
99
Reading various comments here, I'm once again reminded that there are many readers of the NYTs who refuse to consider the possibility that they are making their own contribution to the social and political divide that's tearing our country apart. Southerners, older white people, non-college educated white people, those with differing religious views and others are endlessly demeaned as being ignorant, racist and self-destructive. With these kinds of attacks, appearing over and over, it should not be surprising that a very large group of Americans vote against anyone who seems to condone such disparagement.
8
@micheal Brousseau
So that's why you vote for Trump who demeans everyone and has policies that hurt his own base because your feelings are hurt?
5
@micheal Brousseau
"Southerners, older white people, non-college educated white people, those with differing religious views and others are endlessly demeaned as being ignorant, racist and self-destructive." As an east coast liberal, I resent your broadly characterizing my view of Trump supporters. I do not disparage Southerners for living in the South. I disparage them when they vote time and time again to underfund basic education, health-care, etc. I do know that not ALL Southerners do so. I disparage those who do. Equally true of all the other groups (especially since I'm an 'older white person.' Believe in whatever religion you want to, but don't try to make me behave as if I believe in yours. When Roy Moore can garner nearly 50% of the vote, when Trump can do the same, I say those who vote for them ARE self-destructive, only they're destroying me as well. Should I simply sit quietly while they freely express their views--and utterly ignore mine?
12
@micheal Brousseau So, all these folks are sitting at home making decisions detrimental to themselves, their loved ones and the world at large because they’re upset about what readers of the NYT think of them? Yes, that makes perfect sense to me.
2
"...the aging, white, rural and southern people who make up Trump’s base."
Aren't we forgetting the Rust Belt voters who tipped the scales to Trump?
And what a pompous, arrogant, sneering article. Suddenly elite journalists like Mr. Egan take exception to Trump's low opinion of his own base even though it's the same low opinion they hold of Trump's base.
How conveniently Egan summarizes the motivations of Trump voters when they're as multiple, justified, and legitimate as the motivations of Hillary voters.
Timothy Egan, get a clue.
5
Trump swore an oath to faithfully execute the law. His attempts at undermining the law (the ACA) is an impeachable offense.
9
Whenever I have the good fortune of meeting a MAGA person and hear them narrate their tales of woe about unemployment, the recently disappeared medical benefits that—gasp!—is one and the same as Obamacare, the tax cuts that can’t renovate their kitchen, not even get them a new sink, I do the following:
1 - remain silent as if I am processing their words,
2 - stare at a distance as if I am pondering the gravity of their situation,
3 - look them in the eyes and say: “Don’t worry buddy, Trump is president now. All will be alright. We’ll have the wall, coal jobs, medicare for all, and big, big, BIG tax cuts. By the way, that red hat suits you. Say, have you donated yet to the Trump 2020 campaign? Please volunteer too, even as a clapper behind him on the televised rallies. Trump really needs real Americans like you.”
5
“The Secret to Cracking Trump’s Base,” I for one am sick and tired of the asinine fixation on the “Trump base.” Why are so many in the media rabidly intent on showing such preferential deference to his supporters? President Obama had a base as well. President George W. Bush had a base. Etc., etc., etc. One would think that key-supporters for a presidential candidate who subsequently becomes President, and continues to enjoy support from a large swath of those key-supporters throughout the highs and lows of the presidency, is an anomaly. Let us never forget that while Trump won the Electoral College (acknowledging that is our system by which we choose our Presidents) he did not win the popular vote. He is not now, nor has he even been – prior to or during his presidency – above water in respect to the overall American populace supporting him. Please stop emboldening Trump and his supporters by pretending that their needs, wants, wishes, and desires matter more than the majority of Americans. Stop with the preferential deference to his supporters. After all, Trump’s salary comes from all of our federal tax dollars, he lives in the "People’s House," and he is supposedly the President of the United States of America – not the President of Trump voters of America. By the way, in respect to a reason or reasons as to why so many of Trump voters continue to support him – perhaps for some it is as simple as “stupid is as stupid does.”
28
So no comments yet from Trump's new BFF, Lindsey Graham, about Donald's insulting "southerner" remarks.
Graham seems to relish his new "favorite senator" status with the President.
Or, is it a "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" relationship.
6
@JM, or perhaps trump has something on lindsey graham. That's usually how organized crime syndicates prevail. And most assuredly, this is what trump is.
3
Oh, Mr. Egan, I wish you were right, but, alas, I fear that "the base," that mythical figure of between 35% and 45% of the national electorate, will never abandon Donald Trump. They're Siamese twins, joined at...wherever. They're soldered together and no amount of insulting will melt the iron tie the binds them to him. That iron tie is hate. They voted for the hate.
As for Southerners taking umbrage over the president's trashing of Jefferson Davis Beauregard Sessions III's intellectual bona fides and his Southern culture, well, they may have been frosted about it for a time, but they love the hate that the president exudes from the Oval Office. No, they aren't happy that they've been stereotyped--or that the president pried the lid off the ugly can of Southern redneck stereotypes--the hayseed and the accent and the "aw, shucks" kind of guy. You know, the NASCAR guy who drives a pickup while tossing back a six-pack while whizzing down country roads at 80 MPH.
These folks don't understand that their president exists to hurt people; to wound them; to disrespect them; to shame them; to lower them in the eyes of others. But now that it's the South's turn to take the hits, well, they don't like it a whole lot. But come Election Day, they'll line up to vote for the candidates he's endorsed. It's all about the hate. They can't see beyond it.
One final thought. They're all Democrats. Really, they are; they just jumped ship after LBJ gave "those others" some freedom.
Hate lives.
8
Dogs are cherished for their faithfulness
And for aiding people in distress
So why Trump hates them is
Really none of my biz
But I think I could make a good guess
3
The ramifications of his policies are starting to crack the support of some members of Cult 45. It's about time!
1
I was going to write "although I agree with the content", but frankly I don't know if I do because the elitist, condescending tone of this op ed has too infuriated me to think it through. And if a transplanted Northern liberal semi-activist like me is that infuriated, you can imagine how this tone, which seeps through almost everything from the Times, the Post, NPR etc., more than infuriates my southern neighbors. We have to stop the snarky analyzing of "Them" and start reaching out before it's too late.
17
Dear LNB,
I think what you are saying is extremely important. How do you speak, discuss, argue with, disagree, engage with your neighbors? I do know know the starting point has to be respect.
5
@LNB no doubt the tone seeps through? How can it not? Thinking people are appalled at what the presidency has turned into at the hands of the Base Master of Deceit and Dishonesty.
If you think the press's attitude is "snarky", then what would you call Trump's attitude?
7
@LNB:
You are aiming at the wrong target.
The "elitist, condescending tone" is from transcribing Trump's EXACT sentiments about his Southern supporters.
The problem is not the person reporting his words.
Holding someone's hand while Trump robs them blind is not helping, by the way. You may be trying too hard to fit in if NPR is too strong a tonic. lol.
3
These are not "dumb southerners". Better to call them "desparate southerners". Their principle value to the GOP has been their reliability as voters.
Years of voting for the GOP hasn't improved their lives much, so why not vote for the disruptive outsider? However, it is increasingly apparent that Liar 45 despises them for being "losers" or "dumb hillbillies" and is using them for his own benefit.
The only real hope would be a mass switch to the Democrats, who at least, have people who are trying to make some substantial and beneficial changes.
10
If they weren't all insulted when he said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and not lose a voter, calling them dumb southerners won't work either. The trump voter is either a very rich person loving those tax cuts, or an evangelical Christian who hates everything Democratic, from women's rights to gay rights to even the most moderate gun controls, or an outright racist who never recovered from seeing a black man in the White House.
86
In Psych 101, we learn that all people want to be heard and their feelings, needs acknowledged. I do not respect Mr Trump, but he was able to make his voters feel heard when the Washington establishment had turned a deaf ear and a blind eye. The Democrats need to learn from this lesson: to pay attention and listen. If they do so they will regain these voters, for in fact they do care and want the best for all Americans.
3
@Geri Rad The Trump supporters have an utterly different vision as to what is 'best for all Americans' than non Trump supporters do. Their visions: a fantasy 1950's hierarchy - white Christian men automatically at top and in professional careers. Blacks and Latinos in subordinate roles, gays in the closet, women at home or at most working part time in low level jobs, etc. Most people in this country do not subscribe to this vision.
1
One of the factors in the "successes" of the Repugnant Party has been its ability to build a top-down political infrastructure. As we have seen in both the House and Senate, this methodology of power management has kept their minions in lockstep. We saw this in the most despicable Mitch McConnell when, moments after Obama gave his first inauguration speech in January 2009, he vowed to "make Obama a one-term president" through a scorched earth political war; to NEVER give Obama any assistance in the face of the Great Recession. The entire GOP vowed to fight Obama at every step of the recovery. This from the men who ran through the china shop and then, refused to help with the cleanup.
This is the party supporting Trump — the lead bull in that new china shop — and, what has been most shocking is the right-wing media machine's ability to convince those white, rural and southern voters of limited education, to vote against themselves. Little wonder Trump chose Betsy DuhVos to head up and tear down American public education.
During Trump's 2016 campaign, I tried to feel the angst of his supporters at all those rallies. I wanted to give them some credit for their fears. But with each post-election rally, it is clear there is a broad segment — still in the minority — of America with little or no critical thinking skills. There minds are controlled by more visceral dynamics and they are not likely to change.
Yet, we can only hope.
8
This is yet another tiresome opinion with the same, vain goal of somehow denting Trump. All it really does is reinforce the reality that Trump’s opponents lack any sense of leadership and are deaf to the wants of the people.
Trump told Americans that he would try; his opponents told Americans to give up. Who would you vote for?
5
Opioid treatment funded by big gov in particular should ring a big nasty to Tea Party'ers. Opioid addiction plagues big swaths of Trump's America. It certainly is a negative for progressive independents like me. Haven't we learned by now the "war on drugs" is an abject failure and massive waste of money? States are now punishing doctors for prescribing any narcotics, but it won't stop the problem because people will find a way to get them and abuse them.
2
I was recently told by the daughter of Southern Evangelicals that in her family’s church, the mandate to the congregation is that Jesus brought them Trump and they must support their president no matter what.
We can’t underestimate the power of racism posing as religion in that vast section of the country.
30
Egan spends his entire editorial listing rational reasons why Trump's base might withdraw their support: e.g., Trump wants to abolish Obamacare, which has provided health coverage to poor, uneducated whites, Trump's tax cuts have ballooned the federal deficit and made it harder for these same voters to buy houses, etc. Then he contradicts everything he's said before in his concluding paragraph by maintaining that Trump's base is driven by emotion not economics. I find his conclusion more persuasive than what precedes it. Trump's supporters see him as the "great white hope," who'll "make America great again" by purging the country of non-white minorities and destroying those so-called "liberal elites" who these voters feel disrespected by and inferior to. These are not attitudes that will be swayed by rational economic arguments. Besides, to these Americans those arguments are all "fake news" anyway,
4
The primary reason Trump voters stick to him, even as he pushes policies that will destroy his very base, is because Trump pretends to hate the same people they hate. Trump survived the bus tape scandal by turning it into an attack on Bill and Hillary's real and imagined behavior during the Clinton White House. As long as he plays to the fears and hatreds that many harbor in the most primitive regions of their brains, they are willing to ignore ANYTHING he does (or conveniently attribute it to his cries of "Fake News." They would never put together Trump's claim that the "anonymous" op-ed was fiction with the extreme measures he is taking to find the leaker(s) in his inner circle. Trump has successfully bypassed any media that fact-checks and even his supporters higher cortical functions to appeal viscerally to their amygdalas, the primitive "reptile brain" responsible for anxiety, fear, hatred, fight or flight, and the desire to have a pack leader who will take care of all of their worries. The "faithful" will stay faithful as long as their hated "enemies" are still being attacked
"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead."
~Robert G. Ingersoll
10
I engage with Trump supporters every day as part of the Beto texting team and I have to say that none of them care about the deficit or even the fact that the tax cut or tarrifs will end up helping them. Some days I honestly think there are more MAGA folks than Cruz supporters and the single most important concerns they have are right to life and immigration. Oh yes and second amendment issues. They have become so trained to latch onto these issues there is no room for reality. No bandwidth. What is it that Obama said, something about these folks care about religion and their guns. The only difference now is the heightened nationalism.
24
I had lunch with two upper middle class lifelong staunch Republican ladies yesterday and nearly fell out of my chair when they both announced they had left the Republican party because of Trump.
Some of it was due to Trump's obvious and constant lying, some due to concern for the futures of their daughters and granddaughters.
Neither was ready to be a Democrat, however. The Democrats need to step up with a clear message beyond "Trump is evil.", and they need to do it quickly, and repeat it over and over and over, in a coordinated effort.
12
Sorry, but they are still either to dense, or to selfish to change.
" i could shoot someone on 5th avenue and they would still vote for me!"
That is the only true statement he has made.
What is amazing, is how insulting that is to everyone who supports him.
He is and has always been a liar.
No amount of tax cuts, lower regulations or low unemployment rates can justify continued support for this man.. who every day, " shoots someone"
Our only hope is the mid term elections.
And that is dependent on the democrats not going of the deep end with radical left wing progressives.
3
I am confident that the fine folks of West Virginia will reward President Trump for bringing back coal mining. It is a great day for America when we have a visionary leader that embraces the best fuel source of the 18th and 19th centuries.
13
Behavioral economists talk about decisions made on the basis of 'sunk costs'-- eg chasing losing bets in a casino influenced by prior losses. For much of Trump's base-- as diverse and individual they may be-- there is a strong sense of narrative 'sunk costs' anchoring the high level of continuing and powerful support
3
the trump supporters who say they'e not racist are supporting a racist
10
Embrace ignorance vote Republican be poorer. So it is written so it shall ever be...
4
In insulting his constituency - and I'm one of those "how stupid are the people of" Iowans - I'm surprised Trump hasn't slipped up and used "shiftless" or "uppity" yet, but I suppose we'll hear them eventually.
1
If the GOP can make any Trump opponent seem worse than Trump, you know who will win no matter what Trump and his pluts say.
4
Oh the irony. The first time Trump is right makes him wrong in the eyes of some of his cult flock. How is he right? An Obama supporter who changes his/her mind diametrically to support Trump is dumb.
1
"Cult 45"
Well done, sir.
6
Prior to 2016....it would be people like sophisticated NYT editor Tim Egan, here, refering to southerners as "dumb hillbillies" for not appreciating Hillary Clinton. As I recall, they were all "deplorable".....am I right, Tim? Hows that shoe fit on the other foot?
4
@Wherever Hugo
One is curious in what way the poster would have Mr. Egan characterize policies or narratives that support racism, xenophobia or interpersonal hate? Alternatively @Wherever can suggest an different lense with which to describe speech and viewpoints commonly on display at Trump rallies?
6
Simpler idea, all they want is their cheap beer, 24/7 sports and all you can eat wings. Provide those and you can rename the White House the Emperor Xi Palace.
1
@Nev Gill: Nah. The new president has to be male and white.
I have come to the conclusion that for Trumps real base, electing him was an act of political vandalism. They felt that the rest of the country was doing all right and they weren't. They felt that the country was pandering to minorities and the LGBT folks... And they despise "those" people.
The didn't really expect Trump to help them out... They aren't that dumb. They threw him like a stink bomb through the window to offend the rest of us. The more obnoxious he is the more they like it.
53
@Engineer Think you hit the nail on the head here!
5
Trump will stiff his supporters like he stiffed his contractors. But this time he cannot get away with threatening them with lawsuits to keep them silent about it and eat their losses. Trump is exactly like Bernie Madoff when the latter said that his investors deserved the loss of their investments with him because they were stupid enough to trust him... Well, we know where Madoff ended up.
7
"...status anxiety in a changing nation"? Nice turn of phrase but let's call it what it is, white supremacy.
27
I think we should remember, as we talk about non-college-educate whites and their support for the 'moron', 'idiot' or whatever other name his staff have for him, that lots of rich, educated people supported and continue to support Trump.
The non-college-educated at least hoped he would cut them a better deal. (He didn't). The rich just wanted their slice of the kleptocracy.
37
Trump is a mobster and a narcissist and he is the President of the United States of America. Trump is undoubtedly the biggest threat to world survival we have ever known.
Mr. Egan: Consider doing a road show with fellow Opinion opiners out of your comfort zone thru the south, the midwest. Talk with Trump's people, engage them.
Doing that might help y'all have more effect.
7
@traveling wilbury
Great idea about the road show.
Give our great patriots in the South a chance to vent their dismay over the insulting images Trump conveys about them.
1
Unless you are super rich and without conscience you were a fool to vote for him the first time. Still a fool? He thinks you are. You don't like aggressive posts, too bad. Too political? Too bad. Get smart, you won't be offended. Stay stupid and get used. Your choice.
9
Tim you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome! What you say, has been said already 10,000 times. Please come up with a new shtick. I know you think that Trump supporters are subhuman, but this is the era of diversity. Stop the micro-aggressions!
6
"status anxiety" is a polite way of saying "racism". Throw in a dash of homophobia, xenophobia, antisemitism and misogyny and you have Trumps base.
11
Ignorance is bliss.
4
What you’re forgetting here, Mr. Egan, is that Trump’s base doesn’t read and only watches FOX News and talks to people who think and look like them. Therefore, I’m guessing most of them haven’t even heard his “dumb southerner” and “hillbilly” comments. Some really smart politician ( btw is that an oxymoron? ) should find some way to get some of their heroes zingers into his bases digestive tract, you know, like the way you sneak some veggies into your kids mac and cheese. Maybe in the guise of refuting them, but nevertheless, at least making them known to “bubba” and “sissy” in the first place.
6
What I don't understand is why this only now has become obvious to YOU! Are you one of those with your political house under water that you only now can see through all the muck?
Did you forget that your NYT "news that's fit to print" helped get that Trumpanzee elected in the first place? Did you forget about all those millions of dollars in free publicity the NYT gave him with crazy articles like "Trump will make Mexico pay for the wall" rather than "How the Hell does Trump Think He Can Get Mexico to Pay for a Wall?!" You guys are MORE guilty than the "poorly uneducated" base, so get off your high horse.
Give us a break, atone for your sins, teach his base they've been had from day one, and stop preaching to the choir; it's getting boring.
4
Trump has been insulting his supporters all along. But, he has gotten away with it by setting them up by encouraging their hate, then when others calling them, "deplorables" throwing that back at them as a battle cry for the belligerent.
Now that "Hillary thing" is getting kind of old and thread worn, and Trump calling his Alabama supporters "stupid Southern crackers," or "retards" and other illustrious phrases he holds in his own limited vocabulary is starting to come back at him.
4
Someone who lies so obviously to you thinks you are one of three things.
1) too stupid to know the truth
2) As crooked and biased as the liar so you will go along with the lie
3) too intimidated by the liar that it doesn't matter whether you believe him or not
Maybe the Reality Show Con Artists supporters should consider who is really insulting them.
14
Its acually become enjoyable to be the spoiler for both sides of Tim Egan's perfect political "looking-glass" world. Rednecks, Hillbillies, Clod-hoppers, Deplorables....people that simply vote their own conciences and defy orders from highly intelligent people like Tim Egan, the ones who "know best" what's good for everybody else. Nothing gives me more sense of accomplishment than to send the intelligencia into spasms of incomprehension, usually involving labeling others with the same insults used by Trump!! HaHA. Look at yourself in the mirror, Tim. You're bashing southerners just as harshly as Trump!! Fool.
3
@Wherever Hugo your sense of accomplishment and one dollar will buy you a value menu cheeseburger here in the Sooner state. Hope you have fun during the circus as long as it lasts. Or as the USAF decal vehicle's other bumper sticker stated: "Elect a clown and expect a circus."
5
Two fake polls oversampling Democrats and you have a stupid finding! No wonder liberal loonies are living in an echo chamber.
3
@Hobbes
Maybe you will find a "trillion dollar deficit" more bracingly real. Test the facts for yourself. Trump added more than a trillion to the debt.
4
Over the last couple of years, whenever I asked someone why he/she supported Trump (not many people in my circle, admittedly, but enough at a club I work out at to get a hint) I never once got a response that embraced something positive about Trump. All I ever heard was a litany of complaints about how bad everyone and everything else is....HRC, Congress, all politicians in general. Hatred for Hillary, contempt for congress, disdain for immigrants...all angry, directed as well as diffuse negative emotions...everything is awful, so why not vote for a nihilist and tear it all down. Well, that's what we got, a nihilist who's hell bent on tearing it all down, not because of any plan, but because he's a walking, talking, power wielding temper tantrum, and his enablers, the swamp dwellers he and his voters supposedly loathe, are his mainstay. Go figure.
People have to want government to work. If they really don't, they throw their votes at the noisemaker who last appealed to them before marking a ballot.
24
@Carolyn Ryan
Interesting that we have Ronald Reagan's "government is the problem" people running, uh, the government.
And also interesting that Grover Norquist types who screamed, screamed about cutting taxes and reducing the deficit are absolutely silent about the raising of tariffs (taxes!) and the ballooning deficit from the tax cuts for corporations and the richest Americans *and* planning a second round of tax cuts for the same folks that is already projected to increase the debt and the deficit. Incredible.
4
If people were not beset by financial anxiety, they would be far more accepting of others who differ from them in race and religion. Polyglot empires like the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary enjoyed harmony so long as resources were not scarce. Once that changes though, all hell breaks loose and ancient antagonisms come to the fore. Obama squandered his chance after the crash by giving away the store to Wall Street and prosecuting no one. The proof of a rigged system and simmering resentments against the elites gave us Trump, as many people rightly saw Hillary as just a continuation of the ancien regime.
Even now, with the rise of Democratic Socialists, most of the big questions facing our society have not been addressed. Employment may be at a momentary high but wage growth is not and that trend will continue. Automation will displace millions of workers whom no amount of Tom Friedmanesque retraining will rescue. We can have a world with a handful of Jeff Bezos' and billions in misery or a world where everyone is assured a secure existence. You're not going to hear Schumer or Pelosi ever acknowledge such coarse realities though.
5
While Mr. Emoluments franchises international grifting, sucks up to authoritarians everywhere, & scoffs at the rule of law, his enablers bow their heads.
Time for Trump Obama voters & other who haven’t overdosed on Trump’s swill to wake up. Trump’s not your friend. He’s using you, & playing on your anger, fear, & frustrations.
Election Day in November is the decision point. The November election offers the critical moment to reaffirm support for fundamental freedoms and integrity in government. We know where Mr. Emolument's base stands. Can we overcome the misogynistic fear mongering & centrist derangement syndrome that brought Mr. Emoluments & his international grifters into power?
An historic Blue Wave that retakes Congress is our civic & moral responsibility.
We must awaken independents, & Dems across the spectrum to vote Blue.
4
Republicans aren't the only ones who vote with their lizard mid brains. BHO was elected based on the fact, and let's be honest here, that he was black, wasn't bush, and gave a speech at the 2004 convention. He had few to any accomplishments or experience. Some of us hoped he would be transformative, but with so little experience and a very cautious nature, he really wasn't ready for the dirty politics of DC. I suspect he'd be much better now. The people who got less than they expected switched to a crazy guy because they wanted somebody, anybody, to say they were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. Running HRC just made it that much easier.
1
Most of the free world is now holding its breath waiting for a new age Galahad to pull the sword from the stone and break the code of the Cult 45. Here's my hand on the handle -
You, and especially your children, are going to die sooner. Fast talking con artist Trump promised "better, cheaper, healthcare" as he continually trashed Obamacare when running for office. Now, after 20 months in office and in control of the entire government,
we know for sure he had no alternative plan, is working on none, and with the massive tax cuts draining money coming into the government, there will be no funding available for one.
Hoping to keep control of everything after the November elections, and gaining another seat on the supreme court, the final solution will become clear. We will hear a constant chorus of "entitlement reform" - we can't afford these programs!
If the real Trump message ever gets through to his base, they will quickly see that their MAGA hats really should say HUAD - "Hurry Up and Die" - the real Trumpcare program.
15
Ryan, and that crazy couterie of R’s in the House are going to see how their policies work in the real world.
Their distaine for Government and Southerners is sad. T***p is riding on the politics of exclusion. American are going to take some hard hits. Especially at the dawn of catastrophic climate disruption.
5
I would just note that the snake-oil salesmen of the late 1800's and early 1900's were a rural phenomenon .
9
Exposure of abuse is happening on multiple fronts. A synergistic effect is bound to kick in.
Me-too's are gradually bringing down the mighty in celebrity sectors dominated by charismatic men whose return on investment has long exempted them from rules or oversight.
Catholic clergy and the Vatican's hand-picked aristocracy are no longer immune from disgrace, firing and prosecution.
Trump gives himself gold stars for empty FEMA warehouses in post-hurricane Puerto Rico and disbelieves the official death toll of 3,000, even as Florence shows East Coast red states how rising, warming oceans respond to climate change denials. How many "dumb Southern" mayors and governors will Trump need to insult as "totally incompetent" to cover his ineptitude once the waters recede this time?
You really can't fool all of the people all of the time. They're going to start to notice. Especially if you insult them.
4
the enemy of my enemies is my enemy. wait....
Democrats and the media wasted so much time handwringing and navel gazing after the election, while it was obvious to most of us that Trump supporters didn’t need to be “understood”. I remember the commenters here who were excoriated for suggesting that. Trump supporters made it crystal clear why they voted for him. Early on, he told a rally crowd that he “loved the uneducated”. They cheered. I made one attempt just after the election to get into the mind of a friend who is a rabid Trump supporter and the first words to come out of her mouth were about “all those d—- immigrants taking our jobs!”. ‘Nough said.
10
"It's the economy stupid". True when first said and true now.
Your thesis may be true, but check back after the midterms.
4
Twenty-five percent of Americans still think George Dubya Bush was an excellent president. These same people know deep in their hearts that Barack Obama is a Mormon from Kenya. There's a segment of this country's population who are hard-core ignorant and stupid. The rest of those who currently approve of Trump are capable of finally admitting the truth about him, but only to themselves. They won't publicly acknowledge, especially to pollsters, that voting for him was a mistake. Every day Trump provides new evidence to these people of how truly awful he is. By Election Day 2020, if Trump makes it that far, the enthusiasm of his supporters will have eroded enough that they won't be motivated to vote. The rest of America is motivated on steroids, fervently wanting to see him humiliated so badly that even he can't deny how deeply unpopular and loathed he is.
5
The real common thread is “hate”. What we lefties don’t understand is the source of the hate and how to combat it. Trump voters hate Obama, Pelosi, Schumer, the press, Hillary, democrats, liberals and on and on. The disagreements often are based on nothing more than the comfort of hatred.
We focus on uneducated whites whose hate obscures the damage the beneficiaries of their hatred are doing to them. The legacy of Rush, Fox, Drudge and Breitbart goes far beyond them. So many “good Christian” college grads chanted “lock her up”. Right wing media has successfully sold hate and we lefties stil don’t know how to effectively combat it.
The emotion clouds the ability to see Trump for not who he is but rather who he always has been. MSNBC’s cheerful mockery is no match for Hannity, Coulter and Ingraham’s reassuring venom to so many. Until we lefties find the antidote for this disease of vicious propaganda things won’t change.
8
When you speak with these fans of 45 they all seem to think that they share some kind of status with him. It's like he's their personal friend and they could go sit and have a beer with him and cut up on democrats. They defend his "business friendly" policies and none of them have a business. They support his tax ideas and yet none of them are getting a tax cut- in fact they're paying for his tax benefits. They belong to a union and yet support his union busting. They see liberal policies to alleviate poverty and protect the working class as some kind of handout and never realize that they qualify for all of these programs! They simply can't comprehend that white people like them can be poor.
I often remind them that no matter how hard they work they'll never be invited to his country club unless they're fixing the plumbing or serving the meal. Even a winning lottery ticket is not going get them into the social strata of these wealthy parasites. 45 is a man who has never done an honest day's work in his entire life. In fact he's mooched on his bills and stiffed every working man he's ever hired!
29
@Geraldine And partly because of that, he has never been accepted by the top levels of society. I'll bet that galls him.
Don’t think so, Tim. As long as there are foreigners and “Meskins” to hate, these folks will always be Trumpsters. I see it in the Trump supporters in my own family and circle of friends. They don’t see that he actually disdains most people, especially the poor and the religious. It’s because they can’t see past their irrational and misplaced hatred for the Mexicans. Hate is an ugly but powerful force.
14
I wrote to my two Senators (Perdue and Isakson) about the "dumb Southerner" comment and asked them both to specifically respond. Unsurprisingly, I got two boilerplate responses. One, from Isakson, went on and on about Kavanaugh (I said absolutely nothing about the supreme court etc). The other from Perdue, I excerpt: "As an outsider and business guy, I saw an opportunity to shake things up; but we can only get the job done by listening to you. Your input helps me focus on the issues that are affecting millions of Georgians like yourself, and lets me know how Washington can better answer to you. From reining in out-of-control spending and growing our economy, to tackling our national debt crisis, there is no shortage of big problems that need to be addressed."
They are either feeling so secure that they can brush constituents off, or, they are whistling past the graveyard with fingers in both ears singing La-la-la-la.
Help Georgians elect Stacey Abrams for Governor. Let's get out the vote!
16
@Here we go I think your Senators think exactly the same as the Prez regarding the "dumb Southerners" comment.
5
Anyone who can’t see through Trump at this point, just doesn’t get it. This CLOWN has done more damage to our country and put us at the bottom of the line in the eyes of the world.
Can’t wait to see him taken out of the White House in a “straight Jacket”. Finally, any man who doesn’t have or like a DOG....isn’t human.
4
The adage "you can fool some people some time but you can't fool all the people all the time" holds some water (wink) even for his die hard supporters. I wonder what will happen when they will start to resent him, and then hate him for turning them into fools? We should expect Trump and his brood to fall hard. To think otherwise is unnatural. Trump was an unnatural phenomenon, and it will go down as a historical anomaly!
This is the way Southerners have been treated for most of their existence. They are cozied up to and all their fears and anger are encouraged, they are told they are the ONLY people that the politician cares about, and after the voting is done, gradually they begin to hear "hillbilly" "ignorant" and more. They try to tell themselves the politician means the OTHER guy, until it is said enough and the politician votes against their needs do they begin to see they bought a snake in a sack.
But it will take a lot to change their minds. Some people like snakes.
2
“Trump’s base” is synonymous with “America’s ignorant”. Anyone who still supports Trump is ignorant, whether willfully or not.
Trump is not someone on who reasonable minds may differ. He is so far beyond the pale as to be indefensible.
13
@Andrew
“Trump’s base” is synonymous with “America’s ignorant”
You have created a great slogan for the DNC in November. If there is still a DNC that is...
3
The whole world understands that Trump treats others as fools. His fatal flaw - I hope it is not ours.
Two hundred and fifty years of promoting reason and building good will - kaput.
3
I don't think the issue is their overwhelming love for dolt45. Their unrelenting and self-destructive hate for Obama and Hillary is the mightier force.
3
The quest is not to fix what ails Trumps base, i.e. Country. But how to convince them that Progressives will fix what hasn't been fixed for decades.
Amazing; but there it is; in B & W!
3
There are many reasons trumps base has stuck with him. In my view the biggest ones are democrats. Trump voters are constantly told, by democrats they are: losers, deplorable, racists, stupid, uninformed and on and on. Of coarse, none of this was true when many of them voted for BHO, often twice. When trump comes up with a typical republican plan that helps mostly the top 5%, the democratic answer is often not anything that can benefit the working class, but that the country needs more immigrants especially illegals and that border enforcement is just more oppressive white racism. The democrats could try appealing to regular people by offering support to what used to be democratic base issues:unions, the environment, an equitable tax system, improving schools etc, instead of blaming everything on straight, white, males.
3
I don’t think Trump’s base feels insulted by him. For a good long time they have been convinced that Trump is better than the alternative. That has been true throughout debates on health care, immigration and taxes. But for months there have been very few policy debates and the day to day stuff has been exposed. Finally it is clear to all that Trump picks fights at the drop of a hat, says false stuff all the time, and is persistently negative. When Trump was arguing with Democrats his base was with him. Now he’s arguing with the whole wide world and that’s too much even for his loyal followers.
Considering Trump's recorded on-camera insults have indirectly hit parts of his base without diminishing their polled support, these unrecorded insults are likely to be merely another smoking Fifth Ave gun.
2
Ranked choice voting, a limit of $250 campaign donation per person, no PACS, no Citizen’s United. That ought to fix it.
11
Far easier than flipping Trump supporters should be getting his opponents to actually vote. So why isn’t it? If you dislike Trump but don’t plan to vote for a check on him, please help me understand why.
7
Though it is a sad thought, I believe all politicians are in fact con artists. In over to govern you must first be elected. To be elected you have to compromise and disguise your core beliefs to appeal to a broad enough portion of the electorate to get past 50%. I know most NYT readers don’t want to hear this but Obama was a con too. Cooler, smoother, more articulate, but a con nonetheless, as so forth back through history. This doesn’t mean you should not vote, but just be aware of what you are getting.
3
Mr. Egan has made very logical arguments and they are no doubt partly true. However, Trump's supporters are clearly illogical. Insult? It may have some effects but Stockholm syndrome comes to mind. I think that a bigger factor contributing to the really slight, if any, erosion of Trump's core is fatigue. That is why the center right peeled away a little while ago because they just can't take their lives being made into a reality show everyday. Even his best audiences are probably getting ready to change channel. God knows that I am SO tired of this president. "No drama" has never sounded so good.
7
A Trump supporter is a lot like a Trump, so one had better not make fun of a Trump supporter. It's the one thing they cannot stand, but coming from Trump himself, it is a betrayal. Good point. The uneducated white demographic has never been studied or reported on so much in my (long) lifetime. I thank Egan for his insights into this group and I have a request. While we are on the subject of demographics, could we learn more about the wealthiest top 10%, the ones who actually did benefit from the Great Tax Scam or don't need health insurance because when they get sick they can afford to buy their own hospital? Those are the Trump Supporters I fear the most. Start at the top with Bob Mercer.
23
It's one thing for a person to realize that they have made a mistake, it's another thing to admit it.
3
In three years or less, you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who will say s/he voted for Trump. And there will be an explosion of "independents," aka former Republicans.
I suspect that the election results -- in 2018 and 2020 -- will prove you wrong, Tim. But meanwhile, keep telling yourself that there's no need for Progressives to change their elitist approaches to politics an culture, and that the only people who need to change are those you deprecate as the Deplorables. If I were you, Tim, I wouldn't be so sure that your arc of history is even an arc, much less bending in the Progressive direction.
3
The true cultists who adore Trump are more than willing to go down with the ship no matter what he says, tweets or does. He is giving them (with the help of a complicit GOP Congress) the chaos they voted for in addition to the Supreme Court. The question becomes how much chaos can American democracy endure before we come apart at the seams? Maybe a few more months, or maybe two years but certainly not six years. What will the lunatic in the Oval Office do today?
3
"They’ll stay with him only so long as they allow themselves to be easy marks for the insulting con of this presidency."
So true; but nothing new.
The 250th anniversary of the founding of this nation is fast-approaching. Yet, he were are with over 200 years of ample proof that citizenship and qualifying age alone make a mockery of the "right" to vote. A passing grade in just a ten-question civics test at the top of the ballot in order to be counted deserves attention.
3
Nothing will change Trump's base - NOTHING. If they lost their healthcare, public schools shut down, infrastructure and bridges crumbled right before their very eyes, they would still support him. Why? Because Trump would lie to them and blame Obama and Pelosi and the Democrats for their misery, and they would believe him.
44
Great....THEY deserve it because they voted for him and continue to love him. It's the rest of us who are the collateral damage that I feel bad for.
3
Being a con man necessitates despising those who are ignorant enough to fall for your con. It seems to be the dynamic of the con is that those being conned can never admit it as it would validate their worst fears. Not only did their ignorance allow them to be lied to and cheated, but that the con man always saw them as such. It allows the whole relationship to continue until such time as the pain of the real nature of that relationship becomes greater than the reward of protecting one’s ego. For some that day may never come.
6
Mr. Egan should more carefully choose his words. Comparing Trump supporters to "Dogs" smacks of disdain for 63 million Americans who participated in a democratic election.
4
It's a pity Timothy Egan is repeating the usual right-wing deficit hysteria nonsense used against liberals for years by Republicans.
Mr. Egan ought to have figured out by now that high deficits don't correlate with high interest rates, and that this notion that debt is robbing our children is fine for people making a lot of money today, but it's cold comfort to kids whose parents are working for Walmart or Amazon for lack of adequate demand in the economy.
After losing everything and learning nothing, all Democrats need now is to become party of faux "fiscal responsibility" based on common sense which, unfortunately, is all wrong.
1
Being a con man necessitates despising those who are ignorant enough to fall for your con. The dynamic of the con is that those being conned can never admit to it as it would validate their worst fears. Not only did their ignorance allow them to be lied to and cheated, but that the con man always saw them as such. It allows the whole relationship to continue until such time as the pain of the real nature of that relationship becomes greater than the reward of protecting one’s ego. For some that day may never come.
971
@Eric
very insightful!
1
@Eric
You mean like - if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor?
1
@Eric
Agreed. See also The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for the way the Duke and the Dauphin played The Royal Nonesuch.
1
Patterns of reaction and non-reaction to Trump's contemptuous remarks about Southerners and hillbillies should highlight a fact which political analysts point out to us every once in a while: that a substantial portion of Donald Trump's base does not fit the stereotype of rural Southern, Appalachian, or Heartland American. It's not even working-class. It consists of people who probably don't care what Southerners are called as long as they get their tax cut.
Of course, Trump and his cohort can ill afford to lose any part of the base, considering that it's already a distinct minority of the electorate -- even, I would venture to say, after voter suppression.
14
Excellent assessment, Mr. Egan, but also a column filled with speculation and hope that the Trump base will awaken. We have two months to get to that point and we know that our misguided leader will do a great deal to encourage them to turn away . . . if only they awaken.
3
Haven't heard from the Tea Party lately, have we? Remember how obsessed they were with the deficit; during the Obama administration. Amazing both how quickly they changed their tune now that the deficit is financing Republican priorities (rich people/corporations) instead of Democratic ones. It would be nice if the media were to stick a microphone in one of their faces and ask them about it, but that is asking too much.
119
Can I say this? My elderly parents grew uncharacteristically surly feasting on a daily diet of Fox News. But Trump disgusts them. That meant switching off Fox because that's his center stage. It took awhile, but joy and laughter has returned to my parents' home.
388
That was exactly my experience too. Watched Fox from their inception. Talk radio too made up my media diet. But the advent of Trump brought outright lies from these “conservative” radio people along with their slavish devotion to all things Trump. NPR and WNYC provided the road back to sanity. One look last night at Tucker Carlson’s disgusting mao maoing of Michael Avenetti gave me the proof, which I didn’t need, how low Fox has sunk.
4
@Jimmy McLemore I'm betting your surly parents and millions more just like them will still vote for Dump and Company because hatred and fear is far stronger than humility and acceptance. Ain't that how 'merica works?
3
Your comment is spot on. For the last few years of her life, my mother had a steady diet of Fox News. It clearly made her hateful and angry. When we could get her to skip Fox and stick to Animal Planet or HGTV her mood always improved. I believe Fox robbed a vulnerable person of some of her last good times, even if she was a willing victim.
4
Who, when & where will the truth about Trump’s tax cuts be broadcast- especially in midterm debates?
As Florence & gas explosions highlight the importance of good government & infrastructure investment- voters can wake up to this truth right now.
16
"We’ll soon be running a trillion-dollar deficit, up 32 percent this fiscal year, thanks to the tax cut. Wasn’t this the sort of thing that roused Tea Party opposition to President Obama — crippling our children with a legacy of debt?"
Mr. Obama was not the source of those trillions in debt. They resulted from the Bush tax cut, the wars, and a faulty Medicare Part D.. Mr. Obama simply put spending that had been kept off the books (for obvious reasons) back on the books where it belonged. The Tea Party embraced the lies about that debt, and that is what drove their movement. There is no way to run up trillions in debt with a stimulus package less than a trillion dollars and a health care plan that kept the economy from crashing.
58
@Francine Ironically, Obama inherited an economy from Bush where we were losing 800,000 jobs a month, the unemployment rate was well over 10%, and the annual deficit was 10% of GDP. Despite everything cynical Republicans could do to thwart ANYTHING Obama did, he left Trump with an annual deficit that was 5% of GDP, halving it in 8 years. He had steadily decreasing job losses his first year, and steadily falling unemployment rates for the next 7 years, ending up in the mid-to-low 4% range. Trump, who has criticized Obama's economy even as he tries to take credit for the longest running positive economy in at least modern times, has lowered the jobless figures ("fake numbers" he called them while Obama was still in office), but his largess to the billionaires, corporate executives, and the military has shot the deficit up almost to the record set in WW II (25% of GDP). Even the Congressional Budget Committee is predicting Trump's wild spending on the rich elite will surpass the deficits of WW II next year. And, he is not even fighting Fascism, but embracing it.
3
To admit that a closely-held belief turned out to be wrong is exceptionally difficult, and that's why it is rarely done.
66
More wishful thinking from the left. As much as his base might get a clue, which is doubtful to begin with, they are right about one thing: Trump might be disdainful of them, but the progressives undoubtedly, without question and completely, hold them in contempt. As a matter of culture and social class. And, because it’s true, Trump will always have that safeguard that he can summon to rally the base, any time he needs it.
145
@MWR
So trade unions hold their members in contempt? Really?
59
@MWR. Exactly. Because many people perceive the Democratic Party as contemptuous eletes who never met an illegal they didn't love, or a working class white they didn't look down on, they vote against them out of their own spite. The democrats have forgotten that the natural alliance of working people of all races is their natural constituency and an economy that works for most people is a good thing. Instead I hear liberals honestly say they want the economy to fail just so trump will look bad. Given that choice, most working people will stay with trump.
@John Yes I belong to trade union and they hold me in contempt. Thanks to the Supreme Court I won't have to have my dues extorted from me any longer to support their political causes.
It seems to me you fail to adequately consider that two things elected Trump: 1. A poor Democratic candidate, and 2. A general dissatisfaction with an administration that seemed intent of weakening the US and recasting our country as the root cause of most of the worlds’s problems. It is not that people “liked” Trump as an individual, it is that they did not like the way things were going. The fact Trump is a blowhard does not change these basic facts and I see little indication that these same people wants to go back and less indication they want Nancy P back in a leadership position in the House.
97
@TW Smith "A general dissatisfaction with an administration that seemed intent of weakening the US and recasting our country as the root cause of most of the worlds’s problems" only serves to illustrate your twisted imagination and ignorance. Meanwhile, go to work with your good judgment and name a "good" candidate (of any party) in, say, just the last 50 years.
2
@TW Smith, while I won't necessarily disagree about the Democratic candidate I'll take exception to the complaint about the willingness of the Obama administration to accept responsibility for our nations contributions to the world's problems. Many of the critics of Obama's acknowledgement of the damages we have done in pursuit of national self interest are founded in the idea of a black man apologizing for the mistakes of white men. They consider it presumptuous, just as his presidency is considered an affront to their sense of leadership privilege. Might be why they didn't like Hillery Clinton either. Trump is the ultimate rejection of both a minority and a women as president & that's the rub eh.
3
To that view I would just say that the Republican narrative is always to vilify the opposition, often without the facts: fake news. Their narrative gets all the pac money it needs. Hillary was an enormously qualified candidate for instance. Obamacare was effective. And, weakening the US? what, like tRump??? Why Republicans get cast as the adults in the room is beyond me.
4
Voters have a very short memory. What counts is the next presidential campaign not now.
Between now and then people can change their minds very many times.
Voters also do not always vote based on logical considerations or based on what is good for them.
Decisions are often made for rather quixotic reasons.
Don't get your hopes up too much Mr. Egan. Plenty of time.
206
@Joshua Schwartz
I, for one, am going to take heart with Mr. Egan's thoughts. Given that Trump's base is less than half the voters (and shrinking), it won't take very many of them to flip a seat here or there by refusing to vote for the Trump-imitators now running for House and Senate.
72
@Joshua Schwartz
Well said. Status anxiety of trumpvoters will increase, so their irrationality at voting polls.
1
@Joshua Schwartz
Who said, "No one ever lost money betting against the intelligence of the American electorate?"
Perhaps the trump presidency is another example of the failure of top-down change. The entire political apparatus underlying the republican party is for all practical purposes the same as it was before...think McConnell et al here. The change that desperate trump voters had hoped for has not come. But, there is hope on the horizon. It takes the form of bottom-up change as the amazing wave of true progressives succeeds in unseating entrenched incumbents. I look forward to seeing how bottom-up change fares relative to the top-down route we are currently living through.
16
@PJM
The top-down power structure of the Repugnant Party keeps all members in control, in lockstep. By contrast, the Democratic Party, representing a vast cross-section of the nation, consists of many races, cultures, religions, and levels of economic status. Ours is a bottom-up organization. That's how you represent the American People. Unfortunately, it can also feel like herding cats.
But we work to build consensus through understanding, empathy and compassion, not to be measured by how well the investor class is doing.
2
Dear Trump voters,
My son is a professional athlete. Trump's tax cuts put an additional $740,000 tax-free dollars into his pocket this year alone and in doing so raised the national debt an additional 1.5 trillion dollars.
Who is going to pay that bill? Neither my son nor his children. By the time the bill comes due he will be retired and the vast amount of his income will come from dividends and capital gains which we know are taxed at a lower rate than income is.
Your children will pay for it.
My family thanks you. Keep voting first and asking questions later. I can't wait to see what "Incompetents Rex" does for me and my kid next.
If you progeny ever figures out why they are in such dire straits, it will make for a very interesting Thanksgiving dinner. Don't invite me. I'll be busy teaching my granddaughter how to down-shift her Ferrari.
465
@Crazy Me since it is obvious that your granddaughter really needs that Ferrari to feel good about herself. So there is no reason for your son to stand up and say anything about not needing this or future tax cuts.
The flip side of a passionate love is a passionate hatred. Just consider the emotional fireworks let loose in any tempestuous, ugly divorce. Trump’s core white supporters, as set forth in this excellent analytical column, can be expected to turn all of their fawning adulation for their plutocratic hero into a furious hostility once they wake up from the fantastic manipulation that the Fake President has falsely created explicitly for them. It will not be pretty. The next question is, where does this voting bloc go from there?
266
@John Grillo this column isn't the least bit analytical. It's an opportunity for Mr. Egan to vent his disgust for the South, which he knows nothing about.
3
@John Grillo
Change "once" to "if ever".
@John Grillo Death from untreated (no money or coverage) heart disease, lung disease, various cancers, toxic poisoning from the factories, suicide, family annihilation, alcoholism, what have you.
1
To crack Trump's base you would have to own up to the corruption Judicial Watch and the courts have been uncovering through FOIA requests in the Obama administration--corruption in the Dept of State, the IRS, the DOJ, the FBI, etc.
You would have to stop trying to use methods that would not hold up in court to fire, dishonor and expel people--methods that disregard due process. The use of anonymous sources, accusations alone, deemed "credible" but not so proven--it all reeks of the very sorts of standards this country was formed to get rid of.
You would have to convince people that having a strong military creates instead of prevents wars. There is nothing like being unprepared militarily as the Chinese and other potential military adversaries build up their forces on earth and in space.
You would have to convince the base that unlimited unvetted immigration from all over the world should be our policy, regardless of any deleterious effects it might have on our citizenry, and that the standard for our immigration policy should completely disregard our needs in favor of the needs, desires and goals of aliens. In that regard you would have to convince his base that as supply of labor grows, so do job opportunities for our citizens, as well as wages, when every economic model shows that as labor supply grows, businesses don't have to compete for labor by raising either wages or benefits.
You would have to show his base how lack of patriotism is a good thing.
6
@Oxford96: LOL. Show them his tax returns. They'll crack.
5
This is a particularly irritating example of a wingnut sticking to the cynical Karl Rove policy of attacking the opponents' strength. The Obama presidency, while hardly perfect, was spectacular in its lack of financial scandal, corruption, and abuse of public office.
It was a point of criticism for some that Mr. Obama was so opposed to slopping at the public trough that politicians in both parties saw him as a snob. So -- shrewd wingnuts won't call him a snob, they say he was awash in scandals that are apparently still secret, but being unearthed by diligent GOP operatives brandishing FOIA requests.
I don't quite get the comment about abusive firing -- don't we now have a President whose reputation is built on firing people abruptly, and whose administration's revolving door has to be treated with WD-40 to keep it from wearing out?
And then this writer cites anonymous sources (that terrible Woodward book!) and a belief in unfettered immigration as further sins of the Left that render us powerless to shake the "Trump base." Well, Mr. Woodward is NOT a Democrat operative (ask Bill Clinton!) and Mr. Obama was responsible for deportations on a scale much higher than his predecessor. Perhaps you'd fault him for not wanting ICE to traumatize immigrant children.
The weakest part of your response was that you didn't even really address any of Mr. Egan's points. I'll give you this: those right wing talking points are still working.
For now.
4
@SteveZodiac
Your post is non-responsive to a single concept I raised, as I wonder if you are even aware. But yours is a typical response I tend to receive--the Left can't see through its knee- jerk hatred, and does not wish to; what it does instead is reach into a handy-dandy grab-bag of irrelevant "so-there's" because it has no good response.
I will respond directly to the issue you raised, however, in stark contract. There is no legal requirement for release of these tax returns, any more than the Clinton Foundation is required to release its tax returns, which were audited and refiled multiple times once Hillary gained office and after having pledged--in writing that you can see by googling it--not to accept foreign monies into that same Foundation (the one that fudged its returns). She signed this pledge as a condition to her appointment--and Congress took it into account in approving that appointment--but a mere three months later she broke the pledge, and no one did anything about it.
You might also recall that Trump immediately said, when his private returns were demanded by the Left, that he would gladly provide them when Hillary provided the contents of 33,000 e mails she illegally destroyed after they had been subpoenaed by an Congressional Investigating Committee. That is 33,000 felonies, Mr. Zodiac. Count 'em. You might also observe that she used to publicly claim there was no evidence against her--right after having destroyed it.
"the aging, white, rural and southern people who make up Trump’s base."....
Mr. Trump got plenty of help from the middle and upper middle class suburbs. You know, the ones with the college age children (formerly known as dependents) and who used to be able to deduct state and local taxes.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2016/11/22/donald-trump-clinton-...
321
@Charles thank you. This article is nothing more than demonization.
2
@Charles You're right. The studies since the election have shown that the bulk of his votes came from whites who had the means to be above the working class.
I don't have a solution, but I do have a clue. I don't remember who said this, they were on Bill Maher's panel one night. The panelist said, "what would make his viewers stop watching him". Trump's guiding light is ratings. He remains popular with his reality TV viewing followers, that's his fuel. That's where to strike.
11
Egan continues the tradition of the cocktail circuit elitists by misinterpreting he motivations of Trump's support base.
He cannot do otherwise, because ideologues are incapable of introspective self-criticism. They are already 100% certain that they are right and that everyone else is badly misinformed, at best.
This is fine with the rest of us, who understand that the real reason for Trump's election had to do with the sellout of ordinary citizens by elitists in both parties, and mor important, the fundamental threat that the Progressive left poses to our Constitution and opur nation.
Trump's administration has returned federalism to its rightful prominence over statism, has reversed many of the unconstitutional overreaches of Obama and his cabal, begun to rationalize the income tax system, begun to restore balance to the federal courts, elevated individual rights over those of the collective, and has begun to eradicate the social engineering of the Progressive left.
Elitists like Egan can never grasp that Trump supporters have read the Federalist Papers. He thinks they are all stupid, and susceptible to foolish propositions such as the one presented here.
That's good.
He and his fellow statist collectivist lefties won't even see it coming, when they get trounced again in November.
8
@Objectivist: You Ayn Rand types are all alike: disdain for "collectivism" while reaping its benefits. Roads, airports, schools, police and fire departments, national defense. I am confident you'll be happy donating your Social Security and Medicare benefits to me upon retirement.
12
@Objectivist: Lots of stereotypes here. And fancy words. What cocktail circuit are you part of? Trump is making America Great Again, as in "Great Depression" with his ballooning of the deficit through tax cuts for the wealthy and dismantling the New Deal. The Trump base will be happy no doubt, because everybody who does not belong to the 1% will be as miserable as they are, in sofar as they haven't left the country or moved to a state that seceded just in time. And we'll see what happens come November. My expectation is a Blue Tsunami.
2
@Objectivist They have read The Federalist Papers? Really? Surely, you jest. Call me an elitist snob if you wish, but frankly most of them could not even tell you what The Federalist Papers are to say nothing of their content.
4
A recent transplant to South Carolina, I'm getting a front row seat to why some of the under-educated poor white diehards don't leave Trump.
For far too many poor and working class whites of the South, the success of Barak Obama was too much to handle. Not only was a black man in the White House, but Barack Obama empowered southern blacks to believe in better days and brighter futures.
This new found black empowerment didn't sit well with countless whites. They need their South to rise again so that they can once again feel superior over African Americans and other black populations. Trump gives them this.
The only thing that could possibly upend the racial undertones that shore up Trump's base is financial. If his supporters get hit with their wallets they might stop backing Trump, but in doing so they would have to turn on a key component of their racial identities to do it. That might be too much for their psyches to handle.
104
@Sarah What I've been saying since Day 1. People vote with their emotions until their financial situation becomes threatened.
2
@JCX Then they continue to vote with their emotions, just a different set of them.
@JCX
My financial situation has only been threatened by Democrats who want to penalize me for being a productive citizen by giving my money to people who don’t want to work.
Good column. An unambiguous, full-blown "Lonesome Rhodes" moment would do wonders to seal Trump's fate with his supporters. As a native Southerner, I marvel at how the most ignorant, least well-read president in recent memory can call anyone "dumb." A challenge for White House reporters: Please stump Trump with a question such as, "Do you still think Frederick Douglass is doing an amazing job?" We can watch the hilarity ensue.
22
Tump feeds his base's emotions, not their stomachs and a large majority of them would rather starve than change course admitting they've been duped.
31
I would be surprised if anything, anything at all, causes him to lose support from his "base". Yeah, they are base, all right. I bet they don't even read the publications that pass on the news about his disrespectful quotes, and if they do, they don't believe them.
24
Trump's Make Americans Hate Again campaign always had a short shelf life with those who were angry with Washington and voted for him. They may be having voter's remorse. However, he will remain popular with many who are just angry as he remains a perfect channel for those who rage against immigrants, minorities, women, and liberals.
24
A very inconvenient part of the democratic process is that even dumb people can vote. And, as you may well see in many countries including mine, they tend to vote for the worst possible candidate who appeals to their belly.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time for them to realize that they made the wrong choice, and during this time a lot of damage can be made.
14
Finished Woodward's book last night. Few surprises. But the interaction between Trump, Cohn and Mnuchin on trade issues was disturbing. Trump continually said he wanted to help the American worker who has been hurt by trade. As much as I detest Trump, fighting for blue collar America is a good thing. Dems have been trying to do this for decades and have not succeeded because corporate America and the Republicans have fought it. Cohn and Mnuchin consistently made the point that trade deficits were good. That we have become a service economy. They do not realize, or do not care, that service jobs do not pay the bills; unless you work 3 or 4 of them. This attitude toward blue collar workers, that they should accept service jobs for a poverty income, is the largest part of what put Trump in the WH. There are solutions to this but Trump is too stupid and dysfunctional to find that solution. Democrats have the solution. They need a majority in both houses of Congress to effect that solution.
44
Nafta was put in place by Clinton. It is the pro-business democrats who have shafted blue collar america.
Trump has so far succeeded in a political realignment - moving working class white democrats into his camp, while the leaders of big business, especially new big business, have mostly shifted from republican to democrat.
Trump and Bannon can apparently do math - there are more angry blue collar people in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania than there are ceo's of Google, Apple, and Goldman Sachs in those states.
The Democrat's offering of race and gender policies, open borders, abolish ICE, etc., while failing to propose anything helpful to blue collar america will not move the needle much in the next election for them.
"Democrats have the solution. They need a majority in both houses of Congress to effect that solution." What could that be?
5
Tim, Trump's base does not feel insulted by Trump's words, because many of them use the same words to describe the "other", the one who does not look like them, the one who has taken away their jobs. They curse a lot, they swear a lot, they drown their sorrows in opioids.
11
The base has been salivating at having their own blustering, bad-mouthing, bully-in-chief. Their Obama-bashing, Hillary-hating, press-pummeling hero has thus far rode the wave of their discontent.
However, even "they" have the ability to not want to be entirely conned or verbally abused. The comment about the "dumb Southern accent" of Sessions was an example of "dumb Northerner arrogance" that has to make many of these Trump followers uneasy at best, and mistrustful at worst.
The Trump boast that "I can shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it" is starting to wear thin. Yes, they love his performance antics combined with the beating up of factions they dislike, but there may be more to them than being a simple cheering section for their hitherto hero-in-chief. We have to hope that they have some more substance and depth than they've demonstrated so far.
6
Trump's base and Trump himself are two different things, but joined at the core by some deeply immoral evil.
For Trump supporters, the Slave States of the Confederacy were their shining city on a hill that they lost in 1865. They went on to spread the myth of the Lost Cause and to eventually continue the Civil War s the Culture War.
For Trump, the ends justify the means, and if being a narcissist is the path to being seen as a rich man, and shady deal making with Putin's Russian Oligarchs is the price to be paid, he will pay it.
Southerners are don't dumb, but their misty eyed support for the Slave State Confederacy is every bit as evil as Trump.
9
@UTBG might mention that Trump won with a majority of northern and western states ad well. Interviews of Trump voters in Wisconsin sound exactly like interviews with Trump.voters in Alabama, fear of mexicans, hate of blacks, liberal educated peoole telling them.what to do . A Trump rally in Ohio and one in Geotgia are the same Trump rally. If this poison was just southern , he would not have won , it took the entire country to exhibit this kind of backward thinking
"That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say "I did look it up, and that's not true." That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut. I did. My gut tells me that's how our nervous system works." - Colbert : White House Correspondence Dinner 2006
The Don's supporters are thinking with their gut, and their guts tell them everything is Obama's fault. It frees right to them deep down in their gut ... so hard to argue with it.
4
Trump was as surprised as anyone that he managed to win the election. But he knew how to pick his Cabinet. And the GOP Congress has played along. Now Trump and his GOP are working diligently to stack the courts. If the Senate doesn’t flip (and it probably won’t), then Mueller could be stymied and who knows how much further Trump could go.
Still … you cannot afford to turn on your base. Romney had his 47% comment. Hillary had her deplorables. Now Trump has his dumb Southerners.
The thing Trump does best, aside from lying and conning, is playing to his crowds. So his denigration of Sessions in this way is an unexpected and potentially fatal gaffe.
Let's look at the current Gallup poll numbers.
"In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?" (Aug 1-12 2018):
Republicans: 28%
Independents: 43%
Democrats: 27%
"Donald Trump Job Approval by Party Identification" (Sep 3-9 2018):
Republicans: 85%
Independents: 36%
Democrats: 8%
While 8% of Democrats support Trump, 15% of Republicans do not. And even though Independents are split roughly 50-50 Republican-Democrat, only 36% support Trump.
Destroying Obamacare may not be enough to flip Trump loyalists in November. But maybe the “poorly educated” dummies that Trump loves/hates will finally get Trump’s real message and prove not so loyal after all. We can only hope.
9
@Blue Moon The Dems could easily win by doing nothing more than convincing the imbecile 8% of Democrats who approve of Trump to question why they identify as Democrats at all.
It's a cult.
Entirely different rules.
It's grounded on angering the 'others': the 'libs'; the 'elitists'.
As long as the media continues to report that he is succeeding in that department his base with weather the incidental disparagement of them as well.
Rather than improvement of their own lot, they want company in their misery.
27
Insulting the "base" is not going to change anything as long as they see Trump demonizing and attacking immigrants, Mexicans,Muslims, and people of color and blaming the them for the poor life situation of the "base.
45
@Richard
No, I think if they were convinced he was insulting THEM they would not be amenable to it. His most loyal of loyalists are bigots. It's the reason he got away with the fact that only two newspapers endorsed him in 2016 and one of them was the KKK's official newspaper. (The other one was the National Enquirer.) It's okay for him to insult minorities, but if he insults THEM, and they hear him doing it, he's a goner.
Even using the most generous assumptions, Trump was always going to have run out of things to say by the time he pardoned his first turkey.
Trump's criminality greatly limits how he views other people, his lack of knowledge and interest in government or global issues prevent any serious or even interesting policy statements, and his disdain for experts who could fill in the gaps means that most of the time no one does. There is no mechanism for generating new and compelling content other than obvious blunders and in-fighting. People have grown tired of both Trump's act and that of the hangers-on who often seem to try to sound just as absurd as the president. Perhaps more damning, people may have come to accept that some of his actions are extremely costly unforced errors that any other president would be unlikely to make - mass detention of children, disruptive tariff wars spread around the world, and, now with recent attention, the worst of the worst - botching the hurricane response in Puerto Rico.
This administration was on borrowed time from the beginning. Like any reputable bank, the calendar no longer seems to be lending to Trump.
21
Let's not forget the story of FEMA money being used for immigrant detention camps. After Hurricane Florence leaves a trail of devastation, I'm sure the Southerners in North and South Carolina will be wondering if that money could have been better spent on hurricane relief.
11
Considering how often he's been recorded saying idiotic things off the cuff, I'm hoping that there will be a "Lonesome Rhodes" moment where his "loyalists" can hear with their own ears a recording of what Trump REALLY thinks of them.
A video with sound would be even better.
7
I, for one, can't wait to see President Trump tossing paper towels at South Carolinians.
14
@dbg
Perhaps you have not been watching MSNBC which reported that FEMA has already placed supplies where they will be needed--ahead of the storm's arrival.
1
@dbg The first one should go to Trump Enabler #1, Lindsey Graham.
@Oxford96 Could it be that you are implying that the Trump administration was caught flat footed in Puerto Rico?
As long as the liberals and progressives keep promoting silly ideas while those who thought their jobs and way of life was a right, then Trump will keep winning. Democrats, stop supporting and getting press for doing what you think is right for the moment. As a liberal, even I see it as off-putting. And as for not having a dog, maybe he doesn't want to carry the you know what around in a plastic bag.
3
The "dumb southerners" and "hillbillies" felt offended and maligned when Obama said, "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
But, for some reason - is it that Trump and Obama have different skin tone - when Trump offends and malign them, not just in words, but in deed as well, they flock to him and follow him like lemmings, or should I say, loyal pet dogs.
96
@chickenlover
Here comes that LBJ quote again ...
@chickenlover Don't discount this dumb southerner who disdained Trump from the moment I laid eyes on him in 1982.
@chickenlover
Please point out one item in Obama's comment that is not true. They are a summary of the reasons that Trump won.
Here's another, more blunt version, from an article in The Atlantic:
"Forget your sanctimony about struggling Rust Belt factory towns and your conspiracy theories about the wily Orientals stealing our jobs … The white American underclass is in thrall to a vicious, selfish culture whose main products are misery and used heroin needles. Donald Trump’s speeches make them feel good."
3
The phrase "Dumb Southerner" might be offensive, but the good people of the South certainly did vote for Trump in droves. Maybe he finally said something true!
9
@EDK as did the good people of Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio , Arizona , compromising 29 states , 10 of which were southern
1
@Catherine Powers
Indeed. So I guess we might just as well add "foolish midwesterners" to the President's rich lexicon. All of which simply proves that one should never overestimate the intelligence of the American voter. It has long been obvious that Trump is a scoundrel and has been his whole life. Only the dimmest among us would have believed him to be some sort of savior.
Eventually, the good folks of Kansas saw through the con Governor Brownback foisted off on them and the Republican controlled state legislature voted to raise taxes, so I do hold on to some optimism that economics will be a part of eroding support for Trump.
6
@Michael Roushbut like the good peoole of the south , they voted overwhelmingly for Trump
@Catherine Powers
Paraphrasing former Senator Hruska, even the mediocre deserve representation.
Mr. Egan,
2018 is The Year of the Dog, and while Trump's presidency might have been saved if he had brought in the Marilyn Monroe of shelter canines to The White House, we can continue with the political bickering, or leave this administration in the dust.
There is heavy support for 'Wilbur', as our president is affectionately known by his followers, and he has promised that we will enjoy the best of bacon. We wait.
Let us look to our country in fields where we remain united and build on these in a spirit of solidarity, and vote. This September 13 last, the Democrats in our town are already on the move in the primary elections. On November 6, both parties will meet at our voting house and eat home-made cake.
You may wish to keep an eye on a new generation of leadership for Upstate New York, and Antonio Delgado who is running for Congress.
As for the 1 M. Christians who have requested a donation to prevent the destruction of Trump's presidency, I am unable to accommodate them because God won't allow it.
Even the most staunch of Republicans are beginning to cast an anxious and weary eye on Trump and his presidency, and we are in need of a tax-plan that puts working and middle-class families first. While many of us remain armed in our houses, some of our children are sleeping on used mattresses.
Mother Nature has our attention this weekend with our country folk in The Carolinas, and preparations are being made to help without trumped-up faith.
Here’s hoping that much of Trump’s base realizes that they were props in his Trump Apprentice Reality show.When he held rallies in airplane hangars to advertise the happy days which would come again when he made America great he was being a salesman.What he did not advertise was lack of health care, abysmal treatment of immigrants and his mission to put on the Supreme Court judges who would negate Roe vWade.He did not tel” them he would engage in a tariff war which would hurt them and he gave no assurance that he could assemble an accomplished team.He sold lies- time for a reassessment.
3
Much of U.S. politics is a form of show business that closely resembles professional wrestling. Success is the result of producing a rigidly scripted emotional outlet that expresses basic audience mindsets of fear and anger, symbolized in often nonsensical character roles. It's a sad simulation of how democracy works.
4
Am praying for divine intervention to help Democrats frame a clear, effective message. Saying "The Koch Brothers are spending huge amounts of money against us" was insufficient in the last election. Saying "Surprise! The alternative to Obama Care turned out to be No Care" might be a start.
2
Flyover states have continually voted against their best financial interests. Like most people, they vote their biases. As long as 45 keeps up the hateful rhetoric, the cult will live on.
4
Thank you sir, for the line:
'Trump clearly doesn’t have the bandwidth for the magnitude of his mendacity.'.
I'll be chuckling over that all day.
28
Mr. Egan: If Trump's base actually believed that Trump was insulting them you might be right. But so far his base appears willing to believe Trump's ridiculous claims and denials about everything. Because they love Trump's us v. them and "US first" attitude, they will refuse to believe that they have been betrayed and claim that all evidence to the contrary is the result of a media witch hunt or "fake news." It's going to take a lot more than sporadic personal insults about certain members of Trump's base before there are any meaningful cracks in his support.
5
By the time enough of them figure it out, all the tax cut money will be stashed in off shore accounts, and the Courts will be packed with strict conservatives. Whatever Dem is unlucky enough to be elected president in 2020 will get blamed for the economic mess, just like Obama was. Paul Ryan will return from self imposed exile to lead the conservative movement in 2024. Lather, rinse, repeat.
9
The US needs a lesson on what makes for a successful civil society
Paying taxes
Voter participation
Living wage
Affordable healthcare
Access to quality education
Respect for all
Trump is a 24/7 wrestling match in a nascar stadium- drama and chaos distract while our institutions and agencies are dismantled
Vote November 6 and accept that taxes are the backbone of a functioning civil society - taxes are good and we should all pay from the same progressive rate table
10
I am tired of the term “base” to describe Trump’s followers. That renders a level of political legitimacy to these people, suggesting a foundation upon which something meaningful can be built. I certainly don’t fault people for voting to radically shake up a wayward political system. But after nearly two years of childish behavior by this wretched president, anyone with half a brain and the energy in their thumb to click off Fox News should recognize the mistake made in the last election. Yet his “base” attend his rallys to provide Trump the opioid fix he needs to pump up his fragile ego.
Mr. Egan and others are right: “cult” is a more apt descriptor. People in a cult abandon all rational thought and suspend critical thinking to embrace the whims of the cult’s leader. The sad part is, they become so psychologically connected to the focus of the cult, that they willingly step up to the vat when the Kool-Aid is served.
21
...and they feel personally "connected" to their cult leader because he "reaches out" to them daily, via Twitter.
Not enough attention has been given to this method of political & psychological manipulation, which I believe is part of the reason so many of his supporters seem to adore him.
3
@EDK
In another venue, this activity is called "grooming".
I believe you are wrong. Trump's support levels have fallen since the election, but not by much. In fact after running at about 45% approval for the first two months, his numbers have been amazingly consistent. He hovers at around 40% approval regardless of what is taking place with his circus presidency.
Trump's election win was a bit of an anomaly that is probably not reproducible. Enough moderates were duped to bump him over the threshold. A few months into his toxic tenure they realized their error and his support fell to around 40%. The people who still support Trump, after 20 months of daily examples of his unfitness, will never abandon him. His mendacity feeds their spitefulness, and their adoration feeds his narcissism. It's a deceit symbiosis. Both parties are getting to much out of it to admit they are wrong.
3
I’m waiting to see what changes the mind of my employer’s VP of HR. A white, educated northern Virginia man and loyal trumpster who’s intractable.
1
While it's possibly a hopeful sign that Trump's acolytes are beginning to wake up to the fact that they've been conned, it doesn't mean that they are experiencing any sort of enlightenment. They'll just be looking for the next grifter to feed them a concoction of platitudes, lies, misdirection and phony concern that plays to their fears and hatreds.
It's not like Trump was any kind of a mystery. His trail of lies and financial failures, his extreme narcissism, misogyny, classism, and sheer amorality had been paraded in their living rooms for years.
They wanted to be the ones to yell, "You're fired!!" instead of being the ones who got fired.
And nothing has changed. They're still bathed in a daily onslaught of media propaganda that tells them how they've been wronged and feeds them a diet of half-truths, untruths, and irrational analysis resulting in fabricated solutions and misdirection. And they're still lapping it up.
So don't get too hopeful. Trump 2.0 will eventually show up to pick up the torch.
2
Tim, You know how to write an essay. I envy your gift.
I am a southerner and have the same feeling that you have. Right below the surface of the Trump populist movement is a feeling that Mr. Trump is incapable of understanding the needs of American's. His shrinking base supporters are smart enough to realize that they are being ripped off by the tax cut for the very rich and whatever chance their children had for a better future is being stolen from them.
Southerners have a rebellious spirit and a strong sense of fairness. I think on November 6, they will demonstrate that they want a better deal than they have been getting out of this administration. A blue House of Representatives can check this President with their Constitutional prerogatives on the purse strings and essentially make his pile of executive orders, worthless.
I just hope Democrats will sense their need for greater opportunity for their children and for those that have been left behind in the massive shift that we are seeing in our demographics and cost of living, to start a national conversation that will improve the outlook for people regardless of origin, race, or religion or social class.
3
Mr. Egan, while I'd like to believe your analysis about "cracks in the base" my view is that even a forest of metaphorical two-by-fours, carried by expert upside-the-head batters, will not move the base as long as Trump's racism, nativism, misogyny, homophobia, and anti-Semitism remain front and center in his speeches, rallies, and tweets. Face it Tim, we really are NOT in this together and the 35% of the electorate who have embraced Trump are not leaving or changing their attitudes. The only good news is that they are all out of the shadows now and their white supremacist agenda is on full display for the world to see.
11
@Jason Shapiro
"as long as Trump's racism, nativism, misogyny, homophobia, and anti-Semitism"
Racism? I don't see that at all, Jason, because I do not view our national policy through a veil of anti-Trump propaganda so thick that the anti-Trumpers can't see their way to the truth--and do not wish to, either.
Lately we have been subjected to posts suggesting that he is trying to exclude people of color from immigrating. No, but it is people of color who are trying to enter illegally, and he is trying to prevent illegal, unvetted immigration--as did Obama, by the way. Read Section IV in this 9th circuit case to see for yourself--although you never called HIM a xenophobe:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf
The US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit forced Obama to change his immigration policy, which that court found to have illegally discouraged immigration.
"In May 2015, the [Obama] government notified the court that it had decided 'to discontinue, at this time, invoking deterrence as a factor in custody determinations in all cases involving families,...'"
"Nativism" is another accepted and repeated charge that has no basis in fact; nor does xenophob ia. These are just terms repeated and thrown about irresponsibly by people who have no desire to understand the actual position of those who seek orderly, vetted, legal immigration from everyone who is not born here.
It's just good old brainwashing. Trump supporters have loved him on TV playing the successful business mogul on "The Apprentice" since 2004. They are convinced that his shenanigans are the mark of a savvy businessman whose brilliance is beyond comprehension.
The more that his detractors point out his defects, the more they are convinced that he is "a prophet not without honor save in his own land". The evangelicals, the farmers, the coal miners, the store keepers, they all seem to be convinced that there will be something in it for them as long as they keep the faith.
By the time the Trump faithful figure out what happened, the 1% will have made off with their health care, social security, their hopes and their dreams, leaving their children to pick up the pieces.
31
Your column is well written and mostly true imo.
A few points to add that Lincoln taught us in general how to deal with this issue.
Not all Trump supports are racist or women haters. 90% of them are conservatives that had legit concerns re social issues, trade, Wall Street, wars etc.
Listen to them when they are right, respectfully tell them when you think they are wrong and educate them when you are right like with ACA, deficits etc. that directly harm/help them.
Last but not least don't call them degrading terms like Hillary did. Call out Trump when he is at his worst (which is most of the time) but don't dwell on it like she did.
3
To paraphrase a Lyndon Johnson quote: "Give a person someone to look down on and they'll empty their pockets for you." More than anything this tactic won the election for Donald Trump.
Mr. Egan's right: Now that Trump's been caught looking down on his own base, it will cost him like nothing else could. People who like to feel superior don't care to be shown that someone is laughing at them behind their backs.
3
When Trump won, I immediately recognized that this was "The Revenge of Flyover States".
Those in the Midwest and South are well-accustomed to the gut punches of calling the land that they love - their homes - "flyover".
Keep the condescension coming, Egan. You've had 2 years for introspection. And you still can't understand your own role in all this?
The Trump voters are using him. Yes, they will discard him when the see fit. But as long as they have folks like you (and many many others) referring to their home states as "flyover country" - they can take a few ribs from the Donald. The real gut punches come from folks like you.
I've visited over 44 states, 20+ countries - have lived in Vietnam, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Ireland, Spain, England. I've never met a "flyover country", much less a flyover state.
When I moved to NYC, I first heard that detestable term: "Flyover". Wait. That's where I'm from. Was my confused internal reply.
I'll tell you something about my home state - Kansas. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who have ever asked me "where are you from?" KNEW the name "Kansas". Every single person. Even in remotest Vietnam. "Of course I've heard of Kansas", the offended reply would come. As though I was accusing them of being uneducated.
Movies (like all media) have a way of spreading information like that. Your condescension about mid-American states? That spreads too. Trump is being used by people who needed defending from people like you.
3
@Patrick: Yes, yes, yes and YES!
The vast majority of people who are successfully conned fall into one of two categories: One, they never realize they've been conned and go on living as if nothing happened; Two, they realize they've been conned and blame somebody else for their foolishness, but never themselves.
And so it will go with the Trump supporters. They will bumble along, underpaid, over-taxed, under served, no health care, limited job prospects, fearful of everybody with skin a shade darker than theirs, holding to the belief that life under Trump was the best it's ever been. Or, they will blame immigrants, the Democrats, Hillary, the Tri-lateral Commission, the media, liberal coastal elites, and anybody else standing outstanding their tent when it all falls apart.
But never themselves. If Trump is insulting his base,the chances are better than even that they'll believe him... but not that he's talking about them.
8
Trump's support is based not on him, but on the end of patience with promise-anything but do-nothing career politicians.
A turning point will come when a sizable subset of those supporters starts to finally realize not just that Trump's wrecking ball administration is actually hurting them personally, but that he is being aided and abetted in this pain infliction by most of the same politicians he ran against!
It is one thing for voters, in populist anger, to throw a "molotov cocktail" (in Michael Moore's parlance) at do-nothing establishment politicians. It is another thing when they realize that that molotov cocktail is being successfully dodged by those politicians and thrown back at them!
Eventually, some of them then start to realize that the only ultimate solution to Bad is not Less Bad (Obama), nor is it Worse (Trump), but competently and Reliably Better. Too few reliably better candidates are running this November, but with Worse progressing to Even More Worse, some of those Reliably Better may get into power as of next January, and with luck, start to truly push back (not just posture) against both the Bad and the Worse.
5
A trickle often remains just that: A trickle. But sometimes it surges into a torrent. I'm not holding my breath that Trump's notorious base will ever run like a river.
The Base’s vote was a “Stick it to the man” vote. As long as Trump can keep them believing he’s a victim of entrenched power, they’ll keep supporting him.
4
It is a bit like the 'Stockholm Syndrome' where ill informed victims identify with the ones who have captured them.
I include Trump and the GOP as the criminals here: McConnell and Ryan at the head of the column. Fox News is complicit in a very big way.
Will it unravel as Tim hopes? Bit by bit until, among other things, the ACA, SS, and Medicare/Medicaid are gone.
In the meantime, how many of us have to die to see the light?
8
At last Trump is being exposed for the com man he is. He speaks and campaigned as a populist, but acts like an oligarch. He was going to bring back the factory jobs, replace the ACA with something much better, cut middle class taxes, not touch social Security and Medicare and balance the budget, Instead he has cut upper upper class taxes, increased the deficit, no factory jobs, and would repeal with out replacing the ACA if the congress would let him. The only way to get the deficit under any control is to gut Social Security and Medicare. There are even Fewer deportations than under Obama, just more brutality.
Con Man !!
15
Mr. Egan, the president’s treatment of Jeff Sessions is a case in point. At one time the GOP nominee’s staunchest defender, his southern drawl notwithstanding, he’s been abused since his recusal with no end in sight. The president's contempt for southerners is as rabid as it is for the eastern elites who scorned him when he was just a playboy masquerading as a real estate developer. Now his base sees him as an equal opportunity hater. It’s not about race after all, it’s about money, and gaming the system.
The biggest clue for the president’s contempt for poor and rural whites is his gold-laden Cabinet of millionaires. These are the people he feels comfortable being with, not coal miners, farmers or tradesmen who are far beneath him. When he demeans his AG, he’s demeaning them as well. Maybe they are waking up after all.
5
"Status anxiety" is, as noted in comments, racism, but is precisely what floats Trump's popularity among his supporters despite the clear fact that his tax and healthcare policies disproportionately harm them. It is the fear of a changing population that freaks them out. Of course, they cannot change the demographic trend no matter how many children they detain indefinitely and no matter how many US citizens are denied their passport renewals because they were not born in a hospital. The supporters also seem to revel in Trump's thuggish behavior and desire to undo anything Obama accomplished, like the Paris Accord, regardless of the consequences, which will, Trump knows, not be obvious until he is out of office. Trump is not a king, but a clear and present danger to his supporters and the rest of the country and free world.
3
When the central American kids stormed the border during the last election, Trump won. Suspend the asylum/refugee program and Trump and his GOP enablers will wither away.
1
incredible as it may seem, it's often very difficult to make people see that the "Emperor has no clothes". Even though Trump stands there naked to the world, letting it all hang out, his Nationalistic Evangelical believers think he is quite richly attired and almost swoon when he holds one of his rallies dedicated to self praise and adulation.
How does one tear down generations of bigotry and racial hatred so prevalent in our country? For that is one of the things that drive those "uneducated" voters to pull the republican lever. The other is that they have been brought to believe they are being marginalized by the government and those pesky "Socialist, Atheist, Democrats that want to "Take away their guns and bible.
In our sorely divided country it's becoming more and more the city and suburban dwellers opposed by the rural small town folks that live in such different worlds. Us verses Them seems to be the new political mantra.
It will take a far far better man than Trump to bring this country back together again when it's being pulled apart by economic, racial and social differences that have such deep roots.
Crack Trumps base? Try a high-power jackhammer.
13
@USMC1954
Trump wears the clothes of patriotism, rational and legal immigration policy, employment growth-- especially for minorities--and a strong military.
If you think that is "naked" it is naked legality, patriotism, jobs, due process, and a powerful defense for our nation.
I emphasize "legal" immigration policy, because despite the dishonest propaganda spewing from the DNC machine, with the aid and abetting of many commentators, it has been the law since 1996--Clinton's administration's Flores Settlement --that alien migrant minors not otherwise placed with relatives or parents' friends, must be separated from these facilities by housing the minors in age-appropriate facilities. This litigation was brought by very liberal groups including ACLU, to protect children from adults in detention and not to harm them, as propagandists have been insisting. It is the law and must be followed by all presidents. Hardly "brutality," the child-protection groups who fought for separation for 9 years before Clinton settled, have repeatedly returned to court to ensure that minors be separated from adults quickly. See:
https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2016/07/06/15-56434.pdf
for a good history of reality.
1
@Oxford96
Legality - violating the emoluments clause, plus everything that Mueller will report.
Patriotism - selling out to Putin.
Jobs - continuing the trend that Obama built, but multiplying the deficit many times over, so that eventually as interest rates rise, the value of take-home pay will decline.
Due process - watch for the pardons.
Powerful defense for out nation - such as driving South Korea into North Korea's arms, driving Europe to support Iran, driving manufacturing to other countries which can circumvent the tariffs, driving technical expertise from the world from American universities to Europe and Asia, moving the American economy from innovation in digital technology and renewable energy to coal, and shutting down net neutrality so that you pay more for your Fox News subscription, while the banks and mortgage companies process your payments more cheaply.
On Morning Joe this am from Oxford Mississippi they had a small group of Mississippians who voted for Trump or HRC. The question was what do they think is Trump's strong point. The answers were he is direct, does not test the political winds before he decides, when he decides he just goes, and he is "strong" (in quotes because I have no idea what strength they mean). None of those are policy, just cult of personality. Though on his weak points it was interesting to hear he does not seek nor listen to advice of people who have knowledge.
One of the guests commented he does deny deny deny when the error of his ideas or actions is pointed out. I insisted that he was raised by Hugh Hefner and his magazine and the movie with the biggest impact on him was The Guide To The Married Man (I do not think he would have seen the original play). In the movie Walter Matthau says when caught Deny Deny Deny.
These are the codes Trump lives by. He will always have 25% of the country, just like Joe McCarthy even after the Do you have no decency exchange that brought him down and the 20% that supported Dick Nixon at resignation
14
What really needs to be cracked is the apathy of the tens of millions who don't vote, of those who withheld their votes because their preferred candidate didn't get the nomination. Aside from those voters, a substantial percentage of D's and R's are straight-ticket partisans whose minds aren't going to be changed. D's have foolishly left white working class voters out of their advocacy for decades, and that's the slice of trump voters that were reachable. Let's don't forget decades now of right wing media propaganda that has convinced millions that everything wrong in the world is the fault of democrats and liberals. The democratic response to that has been to shun, rather than show those voters that they are human beings and not the cardboard cutouts that Limbaugh, Murdoch and company make them out to be.
7
You want to go after Trump’s base? Then you remember that President Obama, the Black son of a Kenyan born father captured no small portion of it. That’s right. There are millions of passionate Trump supporters who voted for Obama.
- Talk about economic mobility and job training in rural areas that have been ravaged by the closing of factories;
- Talk about patriotism and America’s greatness rather than focusing on her frailties;
- Stress the importance of personal accountability and honest work rather than blaming a handful of criminal police officers for violent crime, which devastates cities;
- Run a candidate with a fresh face and compelling back story, but someone without the baggage of decades in the public eye.
In 2008, Democrats won Indiana ( yes Indiana) Pennsylvania, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Michigan with a Black candidate with a “foreign” sounding first and last name not like that of any others previous President in history. Trump voters can be reached.
3
@Mark
Too bad Dems are tacking hard to the far left. I won’t be voting for them.
Good essay. Now how do we get it to the people who need to read it?
4
His hardcore followers will never change their opinion of their leader. Because their adoration of trump is not based on facts. It is based on a believe, a religion if you want. It is no coincidence that it is mostly evangelicals who turn out to be his most loyal followers. Because with them, there is a deep need for a supreme being; an entity that makes sure they don't have to take responsibility for their lives themselves, complete with the hollow promises of a "better hereafter". Whether that supreme being is something floating in the clouds or a loudmouth in the White House, that does not matter to them. 30% of the people in this country are deeply religious. They are the kind of people who are intensely tribal; denounce science and want your kids to be taught creationism in school. They are the people who might one day lead this country to its destruction. And YES, they will ALWAYS support trump. No matter what he says or does.
3
How long before Fox "News" gets a clue and jumps off the Trump train? It can't be much longer. They're looking more and more ridiculous as they try to rationalize his policies as some form of brilliance. They've got to know inside, that none of this will be work they will be proud of down the road.
3
So much energy is going toward 'trying to understand' the 'base', assumed as those left behind, lower educated and low socio-economic class. additionally, among us, the racists and white supremacists. The broader truth is, and we know or are them, are the millions of decent folks that vote GOP regardless of the candidate-they are the enablers of this disastrous administration. They literally are allowing the scuttling enviornmental protections, accessible healthcare, education, the deficit, social security and global stature for a minor tax cut. No greater vision or care for the future.
10
I agree, there is a 3rd group that is rarely mentioned. It is the well off “I’ve got mine and I want to keep it and even get more” group.
This group is typically well educated and financially successful and feel no commitment to the greater good. They’re willing to ignore Trump’s bigotry and bad behavior as long as it helps their investment portfolio and lowers their taxes.
Sadly, we know several of these people and it is a strain on longtime friendships.
27
Beto O'Rourke... Texas..... What if he wins in the big red? Even if Trump comes to Texas to support his guy, Ted Cruz? There are O'Rourke signs lining the streets of red voters. There is support. How much? Don't know yet but emotions can shift. There are these signs that show a shift.
Trump's cockiness is a certain kind of show. People may want to change the channel. It might be just as entertaining.
9
Glad to hear New York is watching our Texas senate race. I’ve never but up a yard sign before. I have my Beto sign out and have made several contributions to his campaign.
Most importantly, I will vote! The numbers are supposedly against us but we’re not giving up hope. Cruz is an abomination of a representative of the people.
10
@Eileen
I am watching your Texas race, I even sent Beto money from NY. When I was a kid, I remember Ann Richards representing Texas loud and proud!
I spent two months working in Dallas, and aside from the guns everywhere, I met wonderful people with seemingly good values.
I genuinely dont understand how Texas supports a vile, ugly person like Cruz, but I sincerely hope the great state of Texas wakes up very soon!
Enough commentary; we all agree!
Let's get out and utilize whatever energy, time, effort, persuasion, and money we can muster to defeat ALL Republicans in November's elections; and return America to sanity and democracy.
3
Trump's supporters in the rust belt, Appalachia, and elsewhere need not be ashamed: Trump has suckered some of the world's largest and most sophisticated banks. Scamming people is his only core competency, but he's stunningly good at it.
The global banks gradually caught on to his con, but it took time. If Trump voters figure it out by the November elections, they'll still have wised up faster than the financial elite did.
4
Trump supporters who benefit from Obamacare probably don't appreciate it so much. It's like who enjoys going to the doctor let alone hospital? And having to pay something for it, whether in premiums or copays. Much easier to have a heart attack and get "free" care -- or just die. Preventive care is for Democrats.
5
You quoted Lincoln saying, "No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar," but it didn't sound like Lincoln to me. Though the quote appears at dozens of websites without variation and always attributed to Lincoln, not one site provides an origin, and the quote does not appear in Bartlett's.
Can anyone track down where Lincoln said this? If not, then I think it casts doubt on whether he really said it.
I am as cynical as most of the commentators. Waiting for the #PLIC's supporters to turn against him is like waiting for them to believe that wrestling is a real contest and their "heros" are just actors.
5
Continue to write articles like this one and all you do is pump up those who voted for Mr Trump.
Tearing someone down has never been a successful strategy to get yourself or your ideas ahead. Never.
1
@Matt
Never? It’s the strategy that got Trump elected. Emails! Birth certificate! Benghazi!
3
It's also football season. Maybe people are just ready to change the channel.
1
Avarice and arrogance, the two-fisted punch that fueled theinsidious wave of economic woes and ultimate near collapse of our economy in 2008. It started in the halcyon days of "Voodoo Economics" when credit cards were the elixir that allowed everyone and anyone to partake in gluttonous spending sprees that after two decades culminated in the housing crisis. Borrow and then borrow some more to pay off what you borrowed but can't quite keep up with those inflated interest rate charges you just sort of ignored. And the there was POTUS and his kind,using bankruptcy and tax dodges to stay afloat. He and his fellow oligarchs didn't lose their jobs (when the owners went overseas ) or their homes, they simply rose from the economic rubble (remember the federal support of the banks and the automotive industry) and didn't miss a beat. And, while much of the Country started to get back on solid ground, many didn't - lo and behold, the emergence of the great White Hope reality television star, savior of the Red Belt rusted and downtrodden -he would get them jobs, lots of money and do things for them the Country had never seen. Well, his prevarications, specious promises and rants may finally be falling on some deaf ears... the Rust Belt faithful aren't seeing the bounty they were promised and this, if nothing else, may make them less inclined to support POTUS and his cabal of thieves and lairs the next time around. Let's hope that crack in the wall of support sees the wall crumbling.
4
Art imitates life. Having watched the first season of Netflix's Ozark, a show described as Breaking Bad, the Family Edition, I was gobsmocked (SPOILER ALERT) by the response of Darlene Snell, the wife of the local heroin producer to Del, the Chicago drug kingpin, calling her and her husband "rednecks". The response was a shotgun blast to the head. The show's writers understood at a visceral level it is possible to push people only so far.
Mr. Trump is painfully learning this lesson. I do not wish him a shotgun blast to the head but I would like him just as permanently off the stage--Please God!
6
A major question is how long before reality penetrates the virtual world constructed by Fox, Breitbart and Trump himself. Trump's lies have managed to fly in the face of reality for years, and he's still got the vast majority of Republican votes, almost certainly because he has no public opposition in the Republican congress. His poll numbers may be down a bit, but the voters who chose Trump over Clinton would likely do so again tomorrow.
And what difference does it make if Trump goes? We still have Republican dominance to deal with, and Republican dominance is simply Trump without the comb over and crude tweets. Republicans in congress would doubtless be happier with Mike Pence, but peril to the nation would remain as dire as it is now or worse.
We need to sweep the Republican Party out of government. Trump is just the ugly bare parts of the party of oligarchs, plutocrats, and nativists.
17
The difficulty is that you are totally ignoring the positive things which have happened since January 2017.
But maybe these people who are Trump's base can see through your prejudice.
Undeniably, the man has faults.
But if you see ONLY the faults, then people can see through you and see that your are biased.
America needs a rational party and neither the Democrats nor the Republicans fit the bill. But a "Trump-hating" party is a one issue party without much by way of principles except, "Let us kill more fetuses and bring socialism."
2
I grew up in the South but choose to not live there as an adult-The amount of hate that exist south of the Mason Dixon Line amazes me-No longer is it the south I grew up in-Don’t get me wrong there are many wonderful people that still live there but they are the minority now-Hate is a strong emotion and DT knew how to play on exactly that-It’s scary and not limited to the south-
476
@ann nicholson I, too, am a self-exiled southerner (Alabama) but now living in what once was the most progressive southern state. The GOP's "Southern Strategy" was all about exploiting fear and hatred for political advantage. Trump is helping his party perfect it.
2
Bill Clinton could speak to the south and so can others. Self interest can be explained.
1
Trump is a great showman. He is charismatic, engaging, and knows how to energize an audience. Good entertainment. I bet a lot of people simply enjoy his energy, and therefore support him. Maybe that is all they need to think he is great.
4
Wish that it were so. But, living as I do in the reddest part of North Carolina, I do not see it. The so-called base, which consists of two factions - the wealthy who care only about the tax cuts and the stock market, and racists who care only that he is sticking it to The Other - is immovable, and constitutes approximately 35% of the electorate. But those who swung from Obama to Trump out of hatred of Clinton do indeed appear to be waking up. That is the segment that will make the difference in 2020. In the meantime, it is vital that the turnout for the midterms is large enough to overcome voter suppression and gerrymandering. Here's hoping that it is. The signs are encouraging.
731
@Michael Very good comment. A major problem for the Democrats is voter turnout. Many of the recent congressional special elections, and indeed the presidential election which Hillary lost, could have been won by the Democrats if Democratic voters, who are already registered to vote, had turned out.
30
@Michael I’m praying that you are correct.
2
@Michael. I know some evangelical preachers who might say that Hurricane Florence is God’s retribution for the people of the Carolinas who have voted for the legislators that disenfranchised and gerrymandered their fellow Carolinians. We have yet to see how FEMA with a few millions now under the control of Homeland Security will deal with mainland sufferers. Remember: only those who die in the event actually count for this Prez.
I'm still trying to figure out why Evangelicals chose to support a Godless serial philanderer who used to be a Democrat and advocated abortion rights until 2016. I'm still trying to figure out why Republican free traders and deficit hawks decided to support an isolationist who added $1.5 trillion to the deficit, starts trade wars with all our former allies and taxes tariffs American businesses and consumers with unnecessary tariffs. I'm still trying to figure out why rural folk chose to support a New York real estate grifter who holds them in contempt and whose gilded penthouse in Manhattan is light years removed from a West Virginia holler or an Iowa soybean farm. Maybe they'll change their minds when they lose their health care, when tariffs start costing them their jobs, when their Social Security and unemployment benefits are gone and when the federal government can no longer afford disaster relief because all government revenues have been sacrificed for tax cuts to the rich. But by then it will be too late.
498
@Christy Sadly, when they loose the last of the safety net that Democrats have fought for for decades, these pope will like be told by Republicans to blame the Democrats for their misfortune . . . and they will.
Trump's rise has little to do with things material; it has all to do with societal changes that have taken place since the 60s that places blacks, women, and gays on an equal footing with white males. All many of those white males had to cling to was their sense of innate superiority over those groups. They lost that and Trump appears to be a path to gaining it all back. Of course that will not happen, but that is why they cling to Trump as ardently as they cling to their guns and their bibles.
These are not thinkers, these are believers, for which you can blame religion. Trump supporters have been raised in the belief-based theory of religion. They are steeped in an intellectual tradition of believing what they are told in the absence of supporting evidence. That's what religion is all about. Indeed, the more ardently you believe in that for which there is no evidence, the stronger your commitment to the unproven, the "better" a person you are. They are the perfect Trump supporter, a man for whom truth has no meaning, who is a pathological liar.
Forget the base. They are lost to us. This is about enough sane, thoughtful and decent people turning out to the voting booths and simply swamping the deplorable vote.
3
@Christy None of these things is that hard to figure out. White evangelicals support him because white evangelicalism has always been a right wing authoritarian movement with strong elements of racism, misogyny, and homophobia. The only thing separating Trump from someone like Pat Robertson is Trump's crudity. Free traders and deficit hawks support him because: a) tax cuts; and b) because there are no actual deficit hawks in the Republican party. They only claim to care about deficits when a Democratic President wants to spend on his policy priorities, or when it provides an excuse to shred the social safety net. Rural folks support him because many of them are white evangelicals (see above), and because he panders to their racist belief that "those people" are stealing their tax dollars through social welfare programs. None of this was really very surprising.
3
@Christy. I live around a lot of these folks. I have a little insight. I've never voted, even in 2016 for a republican. The evangelicals cannot stand the thought of homosexuals. No getting around it. Adultery is so tied up in Christian living, I guess it's just winked at. It's sad, but true and unlikely to change. Racism is an easy card to play when working people see their: ERs, schools, maternity wards, and construction sites filled with illegals and democrats say this is not only a good thing but we need more of it. A tax cut always sounds like a good thing, even when they don't get any of it, especially if the democratic answer is they aren't taxed enough. The environment is seen as owls vs jobs and people. Not true, but the democrats offer no explanation except working people are uninformed rubes who should just shut up and take it. In short, the democrats are their own worst enemy and make trumps job easier.
3
I'll always remember the PBS interview of a few people from Kentucky. One woman described how her cancer treatments had been covered by Medicaid, and said "I'd probably be dead without Obamacare." The next words out of her mouth? "But it's the worst thing that ever happened to this country." I don't think the threat of ACA repeal is likely to affect the voting behavior of Trump supporters unless Fox News tells them they should change.
294
@gmshedd
Reminds me of the signs at Trump rallies: Government - hands off my Medicare!
That's why Trump loves poorly educated folks - he can relate to them.
4
Another Friday! I look forward to reading Timothy Egan's weekly column. The only thing I am critical of is the constant references to white non degreed people as likely to vote for Trump. I, for one, am not one of Trumps lunkheads and I don't like the lumping of people without a college education, most of us, as part of the Trump base. In my forty year career, I did just fine as a none degreed individual although its less likely these days to do so. Aside from that insult, I agree with everything else.
62
There are plenty of degreed lunkheads. The only difference is that their motivations are more selfish.
3
@mikeyh
Its not an insult. Its a fact.
Even so, the rest of us sane people very much appreciate you!
1
@mikeyh If the "uneducated" stay with Trump then I say continue to insult them for their bigotry and ignorance. I am tired of suffering fools gladly.
3
Many of the "Trump voters" love The Donald just because he says hateful things about the people that they hate. The people who voted for The Donald in 2016 had many reasons for supporting him, but a major reason for many of his supporters was just plain racial/cultural/religious antagonism.
When I go to church or other public places I encounter many of The Donald's faithful. Many of them don't expect him to do anything for them in terms of government policy; they are just happy that he is making it tough on people with dark-skins, different religions, etc. This is not really anything new in southern politics. The southern political playbook for over a hundred years with both the old southern democrats and modern republicans has been for politicians to run against the "other." Most politicians used code words such as "law and order," "states rights," "family values," etc. but the faithful know what they are talking about.
Much of the growth of the "Tea Party" was because of race -- that is specifically the race of President Obama. People who did not know diddly about government policy could look at the television and see that President Obama was black.
Another way that The Donald is like the old-line southern politicians is that his supporters get the pleasure of seeing/hearing him make it tough for the dark-skinned, but the well-to-do and big business actually get all of the economic and financial goodies.
643
@Aubrey So don't expect many of The Donald's faithful to leave him anytime soon. He will need to make a major and concerted effort to insult them before most will leave him. If they left him, where would they go? He may say insulting things about them; but he is doing things to make it tough on those they dislike.
44
@Aubrey
Don't forget about oppressing women. Evangelicals are in love with that notion as well, even a good number of the women. Go figure.
6
@DiogenesToo Thanks DiogenesToo. I don't know if you have ever noticed but many of the people who protest against abortion outside of abortion clinics are men. Many evangelical men and, as you say, some women oppose reproductive rights for women because they can't stand the idea of women controlling their own bodies and sex life. The thought that women could have and enjoy sex, independent of reproduction, is to them repugnant. Many people who oppose abortion/reproductive rights for women, actually think that if a woman has sex, she should "pay the price" by being forced to carry the pregnancy to term.
As you say, it is all about controlling or oppressing women.
All this is not new either --- read about the Puritans in the 1600's. They were worried that somewhere somebody might be doing something that is fun.
To crack Trump's base you need to win over the men 50-64 who support him (see the polls Tim cites). This is virtually impossible without openly sympathizing with their perception of modern America, which reflects a change in acceptable discourse and a dilution of their status. Effectively, this aggrieved "American Buffalo" male subculture cannot be detached from Trump. He offers them a restoration of power, vindication, a freedom to voice anger toward other groups, weapons (the right to "carry"), etc.
86
@G C B I do think you have nailed it, for the most part there are lots of angry white men with a sense of entitlement. I have observed this in work, personal, and public places, such as on transportation.The younger men are not like the generation(s) cited above. Unfortunately, the group above has for the most part had a choke hold on power and money, which impacts the rest of us. There are still legions of white men whom not only have a sense of entitlement, but they expect you to make them feel good about it. AKA how hard they work, how much they are doing for you, etc. Trump as offensive as he is voices what many men 10 years either side of his age think.
3
"Their vote for him was more about status anxiety in a changing nation than financial uncertainty"? No, Mr. Egan, their vote for him was more about racism. Or maybe 'status anxiety' is just an anodyne term for the same thing.
285
@Katy R. Actually, i think it was mostly misogyny.
3
@Katy R. You realize many of these same "racist voters", especially in swing states, voted for BHO, twice? If the democrats had not taken them for granted and offered anything besides unlimited immigration and higher taxes, they'd have won in 2016.
2
@Katy R
Then explain how Trump did better than Romney among blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans. But if it makes you feel better to call his voters, including those blacks, Latinos and Asian Americans, racists, by all means do so.
2
Mr. Egan says that economics won't move the Reality Show Con Artists supporters. I disagree.
In 2003, George W. Bush led the US into the most ill conceived war in our history. In 2004, he was reelected.
His favorability only started to dip when he introduced a plan to privatize Social Security.
The "poorly educated" supporters may not care about the children of South Americans or the Grifter in Chief calling African Americans the N word, but they sure do care about their COLA.
The way to reach conservatives is not to talk about compassion for "others" but the one person they really care about - themselves.
236
Excellent point.
2
"Dumb Southerners" could be the phrase that finally brings down the Trump regime. After the election, the media elite, to use the cliché, kept looking for a rational economic explanation. The real explanation is that these are willfully backward people who prefer the world the way it used to be, and they were tired of feeling that they weren't good enough for the future. They had no interest in preparing for or contributing to the idea of a better future. They were suspicious of education because it might compel them to reconsider their world view, but Trump loved them for their lack of education. The educated elite looked down on them. Trump's coarse, loud ignorance reassured them they were good enough.
They thought Trump's message was that you don't need no education; you're too smart to be bamboozled by some fancy education.
No, Trump voters: he meant that he was gleefully grateful that you were dumb enough to vote for him. He thinks you're dumb Southerners. He's far worse than the elite, disdainful New Yorkers you despise; he's only pretending to be your friend.
This is the moment when I stop hating Trump voters. I ask them to do what's right. You keep telling us you don't like the white nationalism and racism, so deep in your hearts you must know it's wrong. Trump is not your friend. He's using you. It's hard to leave your abuser, but you know what you have to do if you really want your pride back.
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@C Wolfe
Why did you “hate” Trump voters in the first place. I don’t hate people with whom I have political disagreements. Hillary was a poor candidate and that is why Trump won. Joe Biden would have won in a landslide, but the vastly more intelligent Dem leadership couldn’t see it.
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@TW Smith There was no guarantee Biden would have won.
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@TW Smith
Trump won because:
1. Putin
2. Fox
3. Rush
4. Bigotry
5. Misogyny
I have lived in a few parts of the country, including rural Washington State, on the other side of the Cascades. I met and conversed with many Christian conservatives. They are filled with such hate and disdain for the Democratic Party, that I found it difficult to speak with them, but I wanted to know the source of their feelings. I never did. What I learned was that voting for a Democrat went against every fiber in their soul. Their feelings left facts and logic behind and entered the religious realm. They saw Dems as pure evil and out to destroy their freedom, take away their guns, allow women family planning services, legalize gay marriage, and inviting foreigners into the purity of this country. There was no arguing or discussing. Their beliefs are set in stone. Many of them anyway. A recent conversation with a good conservative friend revealed that nothing has changed in their beliefs about evil Dems. Trump is a reality they can tolerate, and is far better than the alternative.
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@Tom Rose
And yet most benefit from Social Security and Medicare, programs started by Democrats and ones Republicans want to end.
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@Maxie, I think that reinforces Tom Rose's point. From what I have seen, much of Trump's core comes from people who value tribal consensus and strongly-held opinion over logic and evidence. If you express disagreement with a dogmatic person, they will take it (and you) as a threat. They will respond with a stronger and more categorical statement of their belief and their certainty that you are wrong.
If you express the same disagreement with a policy-driven person, they will inevitably reply with an "and yet" followed by some data-driven reasoning. To a dogmatist, you are essentially revealing a character flaw to them by your willingness to think independently.
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@Tom Rose
The source of their disdain?
Decades of indoctrination from secular and religious right wing media propagandists pushing hatred of liberalism and Democrats.
Much of hard line right wing America has become a cult, no less programmed in their disdain and distrust for anything or anyone outside of their propaganda bubble than those caught up in any other religious cult.
Look no further than Evangelical right wing radio, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and "friends," and the rest of the right wing propaganda machine for the source of this unreasoning, unyielding wall of contempt.
I still don't understand why everyone is so "shocked, shocked!" by what has been happening in right wing America over the last thirty years, as it has been happening in plain sight and hearing of us all.
Whether Trump loses lustre in their eyes or not changes nothing. They will still support anyone who will bring down liberalism and keep Democrats from power. And if Democrats win back the House, Senate, and the White House, their worst fears and paranoias and mistrust of any political outcome that goes against their wishes will kick into high gear.
Democrats and liberals must try to reach out to right wing America with facts and without condescension, but it is the rest of conservative America who must step up and do an intervention so as to diffuse and interrupt the indoctrination of their fellows on the right, if this nation is ever to become whole again.
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The suggestion that Congress should be “a check” on the President is a compelling theme for Democrats to run on in regions that believe Trump did nothing impeachable. For those constituencies, even if Congress turns blue, Trump should be a full-term President.
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@Abbe Bensimon
It's so unlikely that the Senate would vote to remove Trump in any impeachment proceedings, that it's futile for Democrats to run on doing that. It's not just people in those regions who believe Trump did nothing impeachable.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of removing a president. It has never happened and we don't know what it will mean for the future.
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Trump's base likes him for the same reason that they like their idea of God: he hates the same people that they hate. But if they finally see that Trump hates them, too, they might turn on him. It all depends on whether Fox can give them an alternate-universe explanation that they can stomach.
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Egan assumes Trump voters will be able to connect the dots between diminishing government services locally and decisions made back in Washington to destroy everything that helps anyone but the well-connected rich. I make no such assumptions. To the extent that Trump's base of non-college educated whites attempts to inform itself, it seems to do so by listening to Fox News which may as well be headquartered in Trump Tower. Until and unless the harm that this wretched president is responsible for comes and squats over these people’s daily lives, Trump can continue to count of their support. Because he gives them someone else to blame for their problems: immigrants, liberals, blacks, the well educated and Democrats.
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@Christian
I understand the view that college educated people are perceived as more intelligent. However, I do not believe this to be true in reality. Today a college education means little more than a high school diploma meant 50 years ago. A college degree, by itself, generally means the parents could afford to extend childhood four more years. Accordingly, it is a poor benchmark of general intelligence.
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@TW Smith
Yes, and 50 years ago someone without a high school diploma was generally considered less educated than people who had one. Disparaging a college education is a sure sign of right-wing manipulation of the “poorly educated.”
@Christian
There are plenty of college-educated people who believe in voodoo economics or that the universe is a few thousand years old or that the sexual misdeeds of priests and other leaders should be covered up. Southern universities used to have many faculty who believed in the Southern Way of Life (but preferred it North Carolina style rather than Mississippi style).
Such people do not need more facts, but rather a change in the framework within which they handle them. Such a change is like losing or gaining a religious faith; like these changes, it can happen quickly or gradually.
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Trump supporters have always told us, many of his outrageous comments are just examples of him saying out loud what everybody is thinking. This we have been told is refreshing. Ironically, this time they are right.
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Let the Trump supporters speak for you, CDJ, but please do not presume that they speak for me or for "everybody."@CDJ
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Trumpers will keep on loving the tax cuts, until they find out we have to gut social security and medicare to pay for them. A free lunch always sounds good until it gives you food poisoning.
That is how a con works, promise the dupes exactly what they want to hear while you are picking their pockets.
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@Ronny The beneficiaries of the trump tax cuts, the wealthy and corporations could care less about Social Security and Medicare cuts. My guess is that if you follow the Republican-trump playbook they/he will blame those cuts on the Democrats, maybe even Obama and do it with straight faces.
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@Ronny
Of course it was a free lunch. It was free for McConnell, Ryan, and Trump et al. They snuck out before the check arrived and stuck is with them he bill.
@Ronny - Yabbut, the folks who got the tax cut do not have to worry about social security taking care of them down the road. Of course they are happy to help themselves to that money.
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As bad as Trump is for the country, I never blamed him for what has happened to us. He's just being himself. We knew what he was about EVEN BEFORE the election yet his voters and the GOP not only voted him in but they still continue to this day enable him. They still choose him to be their moral, intellectual and spiritual standard bearer. Blame them for how we got to where we are.
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@Michael
"They still choose him to be their moral, intellectual and spiritual standard bearer."
If this is what you and liberals think, you're missing the forest for the trees.
Trump is but a tool (not a fool, though, as many libs likes to gloat). May not be the best tool but the one we have.
"The secret to cracking" us is in plain view. Stop brainwashing my nation with your liberal ideology that, as any other religion, has no scientific basis.
As I've said many a time - slaughter your sacred cows, and i'll slaughter mine. Boy, what a party that will be!
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@al
I hope your tool doesn't get impeached by the Dems. I'd rather have you turn on him. Otherwise, when he's gone, you might pick another tool that's worse: someone who's not dumb.
Unfortunately you continue to share in the narrative that the President's base is only rural whites. Actually, his base is Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, and the legislators who prop him up at every turn.
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@George Wood
Point taken, but Ryan, McConnell and the rest of trump's congressional enablers also depend on "the base." In fact, the only reason Trump is play-acting being a Republican is that's where the electoral energy has been ever since Obama's election.
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@George Wood
It goes beyond even what you post. Look at the huge swath of red covering the map. It isn't just the south. It isn't just rural whites. Trump got a larger share of the Hispanic vote than Romney.
We were given a choice between a billionaire and a mere multi-millionaire. Neither one was within a galaxy of representing us.
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@George WoodWell said!
This is wishful thinking. We need to re frame the way we look at Trump voters. It's not what they are for that matters, it's what they are against. Trump defies the normal metrics for success because his voters don't support him for what he does. They love him for what he's against. Trump is against the political establishment ,the media, the Republican Party, the Bushes and the Clintons. Trump is against rapid change which for the working class encompasses everything they had but fear they are losing. Trump is against globalism and unrestricted immigration which has taken jobs from many Americans. It's not that a third of US voters are fervently on the side of Donald Trump - what's more relevant is that they are adamantly on the opposing side of a culture war that's been brewing here since the 1980s. Trump isn't causing this populist revolt, he's reflecting it. It's Conservative values vs Liberal values. Liberals are losing. The mainstream press can rage & shout about his tweets until there's ice on the equator...it won't change the mind of one person who voted for Trump. The more you complain the more he will rub it in your face. Isn't that obvious. What progressives & their co-dependents will never be able to understand is that Trump supporters revel in the non-stop drama, are galvanized when he punches back. Far from being embarrassed by his antics, they're thrilled by it & in their heart of hearts can't get enough of it. He's their champion. Trump is here until 2020.
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@Bill Brown
I think we understand how willfully ignorant Trump supporters are just fine. We also understand how fundamentally their “values” are rooted in racism and nationalism. What’s even more deplorable, however, are the rich white people who voted for him just to get the tax cut. They will hold their noses and mock him all the way to the bank.
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@Bill Brown
Once they find out that Trump sold America out to the Russians for cash money not even they will continue to support him. That is why he and the Republicans are so anxious to cover that up and make the investigations go away.
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@Bill Brown
I am still hopeful that the elections of 2018 will provide us with impeachment and conviction. trump must go regardless of what his base thinks of him.
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Mnuchin's statement: “Not only will this tax cut pay for itself,” he said, “but it will pay down the debt” is absurd considering the wealth of evidence that clearly shows that doesn't happen. We were first told this during the Reagan years in the '80s. We've now had several decades of tax cuts which prove that tax cuts don't pay for themselves.
Convincing people like Mnuchin that supply-side economics doesn't work is like convincing many Trump supporters that Trump is a pathological liar who really has little interest in promoting programs that help his base; he is only interested in himself. Optimists believe that truth will always win out even though the process may be slow. I hope it is true that truth and integrity will prevail. That's our only hope.
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@RF
Mnuchin is just another acolyte of the thrice-failed trickle-down economic policies of U. of Chicago libertarian economics professor, Arthur Laffer. Reagan and Greenspan embraced his Laffer Curve as the new gospel of economic recovery. The Great Recession was the final straw in exposing this theory for what it has always been: tossing the 99 percent under the bus in favor of the investor class.
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@RF - Supply-side mumbo jumbo has worked great for the Mnuchins of the world.
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@RF
What is obvious but never said is that if taxes are zero, economic growth is perhaps greatest but revenue will be zero. So part of the Laffer curve must show revenues falling as taxes decrease and rising as taxes increase. Even if there is a place on the curve where lowering taxes will spur enough growth to increase government revenue, there are also places on the curve where lowering them will decrease revenue.
The questions never raised or discussed are: where we are on the curve and how do we tell where we are. This is because it is obvious (and recent tax cuts have confirmed) that at current tax rates we are on the part of the curve where lowering taxes decreases revenue.
Mnuchin does not go there because he doesnt want to.
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I doubt strongly Trump is losing Any support from the White south, ( or midwest for that matter) no matter what the usually iunreliable polls say Now. Trump’s insults of undereducated white people in those locales, as well as most rural areas of the countrywill fall on deaf ears. So long as their Leader continues to reassure them He will keep them safe from black Americans, immigrants or anyone who generally does not look or sound like them, Trump will reign supreme for them. It’s simply wishful thinking to believe they will ever abandon the only person who they think will save them from Themselves.
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@KB - Agreed! To paraphrase a long ago Utney Reader, "Most of us, when presented with facts that run counter to our pre-conceived positions, will ignore the facts rather than change our viewpoint."
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Too logical. Too rational. Trump’s support among non-educated Whites is totally emotional. Even if he doesn’t deliver on his promises, he can blame Hillary or Obama and they’ll buy it. As for insulting Southerners, there’s little downside. Who’s going to beat him in Alabama? Oh, and he can easily do a 180 and put his arm around Sessions. The base will stay strong. Where he and Repubs will lose is with moderates who hated Hilllary. They have woken up to the damage THEY, not the base, have caused.
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@Cloud 9 Let me add that Trump's support among educated whites is also totally emotional. I have regularly been astonished that conservative but formerly rational friends have now totally gone off the deep end, enthusiastic passengers on the Trump Crazy Train.
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@Charles Focht
Heard the same thing. A well-educated woman in a NYC suburb remarked at a party, "I just love that he's such an alpha male." Gag!! Hoping she's an outlier.
Unfortunately by the time the majority of Trump lovers realize the devastation he has caused to their lives, it will be a little late to reverse. How sad that this showman suckered so many people into thinking he could fix things when his past proves he is a loser and a cheat. I just hope in the future these same people will get their news from someplace other than Fox and Trump's twitter feed. The mainstream media is the truth no matter what people like Sarah Palin and Donald Trump say; Fox has always been referred to as "Faux News". So people, get out and vote in the midterms, this is your future - pay attention to what people say and what they promise and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Remember Democrats have always been the party that cares about the needs of everyone, not just the filthy rich.
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@Mary Dalrymple
With every Trump rally, it is becoming clearer that each and every one of his supporters is just another frog in the pot of water. They will never realize they are moments from death by boiling until it is too late for them. With any shred of luck, they won't take the rest of us down with them.
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@David Ohman
no kidding!
@Mary Dalrymple
Democrats only care about illegal immigrant and refugees. Oh, and unisex bathrooms. Not a winning platform.
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Trump support has little to do with policy or economics. The bigger question, as with any other reality TV show, is when do people just get tired of watching the same nonsense and change the channel?
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@Ken - Bingo!!
@Matt, you turned to the trash channel and you're getting the trash.
Trashing Obamacare is not the best strategy for Republicans. I guess it was when Obama was President and the House Republicans could vote to repeal over 50 times, knowing that Obama would never sign their bills to repeal. I would recommend that commenters Google "Rose Garden Beer Party" to see the photos of the happiest middle aged and older white guys in one setting. The Chicago Sun Times had one of these photos of a grinning Paul Ryan, Steve Scalise, Donald Trump and others on their front page with the caption "They win, 23 million lose." That number was derived from the USA editorial in the same issue that calculated that 23 million Americans would lose their health insurance over the next 10 years if the bill got through the Senate and was signed by Trump. Fortunately, Senator John McCain put the kibosh on that.
Every Democrat running for Congress should use these photographs to show just how happy Republicans can be when they hurt their fellow Americans.
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@tom boyd
Yep, well put; they hate us. They love money. They love Russia. Traitors: Republicans.
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