I fully expect Trump to keep on doing horrible things for the next four years. But if none of those horrible things cause anyone who voted for him to change their mind, then he at least has an awfully good chance at being re-elected. What’s he going to do that will actually cost him any of the votes he won in 2016?
Some of the reasons people voted for Trump in the general election include (in no particular order):
[ol]
[li]He was the candidate most likely to put pro-life justices on the Supreme Court[/li][li]He was the candidate most likely to support the agenda of the Congressional Republicans[/li][li]He’s an immigration hard-liner[/li][li]He says things which are politically incorrect[/li][li]He pisses off the “coastal elites”[/li][li]He’s openly critical of Islam and Muslims.[/li][/ol]
For the first two of those, sure, there are a lot of Republicans who’d be a better fit, but once Trump won the primary, that sort of voter coalesced around him as their best choice among those who still had a chance of winning. For them, he was electable and good enough. Those voters weren’t willing to risk electing a Democrat by challenging the Republican nominee; they certainly aren’t going to support a primary challenge now that he’s the sitting President.
As for the others, he’s doing exactly what won them over during the campaign. They aren’t going to turn around and say “Well, I was cool with him demonizing Muslims and threatening to discriminate against them, but now that he’s actually doing it, that’s a bridge too far.”
You might say: “What about the people who end up losing their health insurance if the Republicans gut Obamacare?” While I could see some people flipping from opposing Obamacare to supporting the reinstatement of an Obamacare-like plan once they realize they were benefitting from it, I find it hard to see someone switching from “I’m going to vote for the party that has made Obamacare-opposition their signature issue” to “I’m going to vote for whoever promises to bring back my Obamacare.” The people who were primarily driven by Obamacare opposition aren’t likely to switch their view on it. And the people who disliked Obamacare because they supported Republican politicians or listened to Republican media personalities for other reasons, and those Republicans said Obamacare was bad – those people will still have those other reasons to keep supporting the Republicans.
You might say: “What about the people who expected him to bring back manufacturing jobs?” (I presume he’ll mostly fail at that, since the jobs he claims were lost to Mexico and China have, in reality, mostly been replaced by automation.) “What about the people who expected him to ‘drain the swamp?’” I suspect those are really just the same folks who feel abandoned by the establishment, and like Trump because his rhetoric infuriates that same establishment. They never really had much hope the government would do anything for them; mostly, they were angry at their loss of economic opportunity and used their vote to express that anger. When Trump fails to create jobs for them, but keeps pissing off the folks they blame or resent, they’ll still see him as their guy (at least, more so than the Democratic candidate), and they’ll shrug and say “Well, he’s doing the best he can given all the red tape and corruption in Washington.”
The other way Trump loses, even if he keeps basically the same votes he had, is if Democrats turn out in greater numbers. But really, if all the abhorrent things he said during the campaign weren’t motivation enough, why will it be any different now that he’s actually doing them?
I sincerely hope I’m wrong.