A crashed economy won’t do it. They will blame Obama.
He is already making the US a mockery on the world stage. Hell, electing him in the first place did that. They don’t care.
Another war or two would probably increase his popularity with them.
Doesn’t matter that he can’t fulfill his campaign promise of a border wall. Or more coal jobs (yes there are a few more, a drop in the bucket).
I donno. What if he hit someone on national TV? They would claim that they deserved it.
What if Melania was found stabbed with a letter opener in a locked room situation? Still won’t turn them I think (even as he is hauled off to jail [self defense/she deserved it/she’s a foreigner]).
His tweets show that he is pretty much a raving lunatic. No facts no truth. They don’t care.
If FOX ‘News’ did a 180, and spoke the truth about him, perhaps that would do it. Or would they simply abandon FOX and claim they are part of the big conspiracy against Trump? The ‘Deep State’, whatever the hell that’s supposed to be.
Perhaps if FOX told them that they are not to blame for voting for him… He is the GREATEST con man in the world. Maybe, his supporters would re-think this.
Well, maybe if he personally went to each one of them and did unspeakable things to them, their families, and their pets, and then stole any money they had left, maybe that would sour them on their Messiah. But he would have to commit these little faux pas individually.
Realistically, I don’t know if there’s anything he could do that would make his supporters turn on him. He’ll just say, ‘It never happened! The video is fake! FAKE NEWS!’ and they’ll believe him.
Well, Tom Arnold is saying he has a tape of Trump beating up Melania. If released, I could see it melting some support…but only if the video was of such crystal clear resolution that there was no denying it was him and her. We can be sure that if that any hint of fuzziness will be seized upon by his base to declare it faked.
Nothing will affect his base. Anybody who voted for him knew what he was and did it anyway.
The question that’s more important is what it will take for Republican politicians to turn on him. He’s an interloper and they went with him for purely pragmatic reasons. All things being equal they’d prefer an actual politician instead.
Nothing short of watching him getting taken down by a smaller opponent and shown for the miserable, narcissistic coward he is would convince his die-hard supporters to abandon him, hence his unwillingness to shake hands with Angela Merkel as he knows she could put him in an armbar and force him to submit in twelve seconds.
There is, of course, Trump’s evangelical base, who welcome his pliability in allowing fundamentalist Christian infleunce on government policy and many of whom sincerely believe that he will be conduit through which the supposed prophecies in the biblical Book of Revelation will come to pass. If you’ve never spoken to such people you should because it is quite clear that he can do no wrong for them as long as he engages in rhetoric which appeals their cause and does things like moving the US Embassy to Jeruselum to provoke the Palestinians. For these people, Trump could literally appear on live television being pissed in by Russian hookers while being sodomized by Vladimir Putin and eating aborted fetus stew, and it would shake their devotion not one iota. Trump is literally everything in diametrical opposition to their supposed values and yet they strump for him anyway.
I think a powerful, charismatic Evangelical leader denouncing him would turn Evangelicals against him. Even just Mike Pence could do it.
It wouldn’t get the entire base of course. My dad is Typical Angry Old White Guy and he probably wouldn’t be swayed by a religious leader denouncing Trump. I’ve heard my dad say “poor Trump…” several times with regards to Trump-related scandals.
But the people who are voting for and supporting Trump purely because of Jesus can be swayed by a different shady daddy figure, just as easily as they were swayed by this one.
I agree with those saying nothing will shake his base.
They elected him to piss off everybody who didn’t vote for him. And it’s working perfectly, why would they be unhappy?
It’s that he continues with the rallies that keeps them frothing with support. He gets them chanting, USA! USA !, and tells them lies they want to hear. He did nothing wrong re Russia, everyone will be covered, coal jobs are coming back, etc, etc. They aren’t coming to hear the truth so much as what they like to hear. It’s theatre, just like the Kim Jun back and forth, all for show. Everybody gets a turns to look first like a tough guy, then, in turn more cooperative. It’s on, it’s off, garners THE most headlines, over the longest period. Attention whores love that, and they really are two peas in a pod when it comes to that, in my opinion.
The only Evangelical with that much clout would have been Billy Graham in his prime.
I’m looking at Eric Greitens in Missouri. Here’s a guy who admitted having an affair, and is accused of blackmailing the woman. He’s also accused of using resources from a charity he founded for his political campaign. A huge amount of money from unidentifiable sources flowed into his campaign.
The Missouri General Assembly, which is 70% Republican, is investigating impeachment; the state Republican party has distanced itself as far away from him as it can, and the Republican Attorney General - who’s planning to run against Claire McCaskill, the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrat - is stuck between tearing his own party apart if he moves against Greitens, or being tied to him by independent voters if he doesn’t.
Trump could have paid for a million abortions, but his base will still support him because Gorsuch and the other conservatives judges that Trump appoints will no doubt save that many babies, if not more.
Trump drops a “nigger” bomb on live TV? His base will support him because the gangsta rappers say it all the time. Also, look at how many Jews he employs. His daughter is a Jew. So he can’t be racist. He’s a modern day Martin Luther King Jr!
There’s a tape of Trump fellating Putin? His base will express some disgust, but then will say “Well, we never said the guy was a saint. And if fellating Putin is what gets our economy on track and makes Murica Great Again, we don’t care.” Then they’ll accuse liberals of being hypocrites for making a big deal out of the whole thing. “I thought ya’ll said there’s nothing wrong with being gay! Make up your minds!”
Trump starts another world war? His base will cheer over Trump showing the world who is boss. Plus, a world war means American jobs. That’s all that matters.
I think if Trump did a live interview on Fox News and admitted that he doesn’t give a good goddamn about anyone but himself (and maybe Ivanka), he probably would lose the majority of Trump supporters. I firmly believe these folks are idiots, but I don’t think they are completely irrational. As long as Trump maintains some modicum of an illusion that he cares about the “real American”, he will have some support. But if he shatters that illusion with his own words, I don’t think he will have many friends left.
Back when he was still running for President, Trump publicly said “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
There it is. Trump saying that his followers are sheep. And he got away with it. His followers proved they are indeed sheep by accepting what Trump said and proving he’s right. These people are mindless.
Trump could lose his base in an instant. It isn’t going to happen, but it wouldn’t be difficult for him. He would lose them if he announced that he’s changed his mind, that the United States needs a truly socialist government, and that the first step in that direction is that, as of yesterday, the tax rate has tripled for those who make above $500,000 , and increased by a factor of ten for those who make above $1,000,000. Also, to save the planet, gasoline rationing begins today, anyone driving their own car is limited to 20 gallons a week, anyone driving their own truck is no longer allowed to buy gas at all. Oh, and by the beginning of next month all guns will be banned except .22 caliber, and all of those must have a long barrel.
Absolutely considered it, yes. However, it has been eminently clear for years that that couldn’t possibly be the case. The difference between an opportunistic slimy conniving politician (Clinton) and an opportunistic slimy conniving demagogue (Trump) is that the politician lies to her enemies while the demagogue lies to everyone and especially his closest supporters. The politician stabs her enemies in the back; the demagogue stabs EVERYBODY in the back. Not seeing that Trump is a demagogue is spectacularly blind. He has not been, and will not turn out to be, the lesser of two evils - from anybody’s point of view except his own.