Scaramouch is a great trump troll…
It sounds like Trump The Political Brand is in danger of breaching the trust thermocline. Enough negatives and his support could in theory suddenly fall off rapidly.
That article is not about Trump – it’s more business-related – but it’s still relevant and fascinating (and written by former Doper garius). Would recommend.
Interesting article. It describes pretty much what happened with me, when I eventually disengaged with an organization I used to be heavily involved with. A few years of gradually worse and worse actions and decisions, some generalized for the organization, and some directed at me personally, and then one of the leaders pulled some shit that was just too much. Even if the organization turfed that one guy, I’m not sure I’d go back any time soon.
But … but … but … He’s Polling So Well!™ And after all, springtime polls = autumn votes!
More information about PA and Haley:
Good piece. Gift link.
So which is true? I’ve now read both opinion piece articles.
In the publicnotice.co article that JohnT posted, trump’s trials and general legal troubles were indicated as no small part of the ‘deep trouble’ that the trump campaign is supposedly in- that it’s serving to highlight just what an awful candidate he actually is, as well as blocking him from doing the campaigning and fundraising he needs to do.
Then the NYT opinion piece claims essentially the opposite- that the trials are bolstering his support among those who are inclined to believe trump is being persecuted, and giving trump an ‘opt-out’ from actively campaigning while giving him the publicity of an active campaign.
It may be mere wishful thinking, but I’m inclined to believe the publicnotice article viewpoint. It does feel like trump’s support is finally cratering, as indicated by things like the lack of protesters outside the NY courtroom, and the unusually strong support for Haley in the Pennsylvania primary. The trials may be bolstering trump’s support among his base, but they alone are not enough to put him back in office. trump still needs votes from ‘moderate’, non-MAGA voters.
What I did like about the NYT piece is that Stuart Stevens, the author of the article, is clearly following this thread-- he directly quoted my thread title 
But we should not normalize how extraordinary it is that Mr. Trump is still a viable candidate for president.
(Emphasis mine)
I do not believe for a single moment any of this trial is helping Trump. Trump might have had a chance to spin this as him being victimized, but I don’t think most of the public is buying it. He comes across as a whiner, a weakling, and he can’t even drum up support from his own family members let alone MAGA to come to the courthouse. This is a disaster for Trump.
Yeah, the theory in that piece is that Trump playing the victim card will “enrage” his base, and motivate them to come out in droves to vote for him. I could see instances where such a thing could happen, but I don’t think it’s actually happening in the circumstances we’re actually seeing.
It’s been said before, but a lot of the alt-right sorts of people truly, genuinely hate weakness, and Trump playing the victim, and whining, just makes him look weak. For all his bluster, he’s still mostly meekly submitting to the judge who is treating him like a toddler having a temper tantrum. The base are going to hate that.
Trump could turn this around by changing his behavior, but that would require him to recognize that he’s making a mistake with his current behavior, and as we’ve seen, admitting to error is virtually impossible for him.
The funny thing is that for some of his base it’s certainly working. My MAGA mother is pissed at the “two tiered” justice system going after Trump and letting “Crooked” Joe Biden free. (She actually uses much worse language.) I suspect most of us always thought Trump was in a bubble being surrounded by yes men, but with the revelation that he has an employee whose sole job is to gather positive articles about him from various news sources, it really puts things into perspective. Trump genuinely believes he only need to appeal to his base. Remember when he said he didn’t need Nikki Haley supporters?
Trump is going to crash spectacularly. Let’s just see how much more damage he can do do the Republican party and the United States when he explodes.
I’m inclined to agree with you, but then I see how the latest polls are inconclusive (e.g., listen to the the 5-minute podcast linked below), and I’m not so sure. We’ll know better in a few weeks…but maybe not, as the calendar between now and November for Trump’s various trials (including verdicts and – one hopes – sentencings and appeals) has so many permutations.
A week or so ago, there was a lot of gossip about how Trump fell asleep in court. My thoughts were:
(1) old man is tired
(2) what better way to show contempt, and thus power, without getting called out for it?
Like so much else, a determined viewer will make events fit their narrative. I want to believe that support has cratered, but I’m so insulated from genuine Trumpists that I have no window in.
Actual journalism would be preferable to journalistic speculation, but I don’t know where to find that.
I agree with this except that I think “cratering” is putting it a bit too strongly – but that’s just picking a nit. It happens that Trump losing just a few percentage points of support is sufficient to sink his chances in the 2024 general election.
The hitch in Stevens’ argument is when he admits:
Relying on turning out an existing base of supporters (rather than broadening that base) is not new to the Trump campaign.
Some commentators will talk about the MAGA movement as though it’s on parity with the non-MAGA movement. “About half the country” is MAGA, they suggest, supporting Trump uncritically. I’m confident that the MAGA movement represents nowhere near half the U.S. voting population. Probably isn’t even a third.
If Stevens means by “base of supporters” the firmest MAGA bedrock, he’s saying between the lines that Trump’s 2024 general election chances are in trouble. If instead Stevens means 2020 Trump voters, he’s overestimating the raw number of today’s “base of supporters” because a lot of those voters weren’t and aren’t MAGA.
Something happened to polls beginning 8 years ago. Perhaps the growing number of right wing pollsters are throwing off averaging, but polls seem less reliable predictors than they were in years past.
Professor Allan Lichtman, however, has maintained his perfect batting average for predicting Presidential elections and he’s saying a lot would have to go wrong before November for Biden not to win.
Biden to defeat Trump in election 2024 | Allan Lichtman - YouTube
The problem here is, for your #2 to affect the MAGA voters, they have to hear about it. And the narrative they’ve been spinning for years now is “Sleepy Joe Biden doesn’t have what it takes to be President!” So getting them to look at Trump actually sleeping on the job plays directly against the narrative they MAGAs have been programmed with the last several years.
I suspect that any such “plan” has a bigger risk of making a few MAGAs question their received wisdom, rather than enraging them. And it wouldn’t take too many of them waking up to reality to doom Trump at the polls.
Oh, I didn’t think there was a plan. I just think people who are inclined to reinforce their beliefs will find a way.
In response to Cardigan’s post : yes, there is a real possibility that a lot will go wrong before November, and , in response to solost’s post, those things which go wrong may well convince many moderate non Magas to vote for Trump.
So, If Biden loses 2 per cent of the Dems, and Trump re-gains 2 percent of Republicans, Trump can win the White House.
The possibility I’m referring to is in this paywalled NY Times article:
It’s paywalled, but you only have to read the headline and look at the photo to understand the gist of the article.
There may be violence at the Democratic convention.
Many young Democrats care more about Palestinians than they do about themselves, and they may not vote for the party that will preserve their own abortion rights and the stability of the entire American political system. They may well boycott Biden.
And many of the missing “moderate Republicans” mentioned in solst’s post will be motivated to return to the GOP, because they will think that Biden causes violence. (scenes which will be exagerated on Foxnews, and compared to the BLM riots in Portland , but never to the Jan 6 riots.
)
So Trump still remains a viable candidate.
As single issues go, my guess is that the Dobbs decision will have a far greater electoral impact on the upcoming election than any statistical dent the ongoing Israel-Palestinian conflict might have among the youth vote.
I hope you’re right. But we are all guessing.
Perhaps his very, very solid base.
But for everyone else, including the “base” who are more on the edge? Trump simply whining every day and doing nothing but being a sad victim is simply going to get boring. Dull dull dull.
“What did Trump do today?”
“More crying on the courthouse steps about how everyone is so meeeeannn to him.”
< Yawn >
MAGAts want theatre. They want performance. They want new and improved insults and comical antics from their clown.