For the 147,296th time, no, I am not spiking the football. Every time I try that, the damn thing bounces back up and clips me in the nits. Two polls do not make a “trend,” but if yesterdays Marist and the CNN poll of a couple of days ago are accurate, and buttressed by future reliable polling, then the Trump train may be speeding towards a washed out bridge, instead of Nancy Pelosi tied to the track like Tess Trueheart in the old mountie movies.
The Marist poll has Trump at 39% approval, CNN has it pegged at 47%. This is the first time that Trump has broken the 40% floor in popularity. Likewise, Marist shows him losing ground substantially in almost all if not all key groups of what should be his staunchest “base.” But the most worrying thing is that the Marist poll shows his support among Republicans as a whole at 80%, down from 89% in the last poll. I remember GOP strategists Rick Wilson and Mike Murphy, each saying separately over a year ago when Trump was struggling in the polls that the absolute floor of support for a president of either party in party support was generally accepted to be 87%. If an incumbent hit 85%,people with 12 functioning brain cells tended to start putting on life jackets and climbing up on the rails.
The real question is “Why now?” I mean, it’s not like Trump has changed his basic pattern of behavior. He’s still the same small, petty, obnoxious pain in the ass that he’s been since he clanked down his schlock golden escalator to spark a national nightmare. Why is his base suddenly freaking out now, especially when his right wing overlords at FOX are so busy praising him for being such a good widdle man?
Network pundits have all kinds of ideas and theories as to why Trump is suddenly falling off the cliff, and personally, I think they’re fill of shit. The problem with political pundits and commentators is the simple fact that they’re political creatures. They look at everything through a political lens, and they can only conceive of, and ascribe conditions to political causes and effects.
How many times does this have to be said? Donald Trump is NOT a creature of politics! Trump has no political background, no political skills, no political common sense, Pundits keep looking for political loopholes that keep allowing Trump to escape political disaster, but they’re ignoring the simple fact that Trump’s most reliable base is NOT motivated by any kind of political logic or orthodoxy either.
Trump is a cult figure, a craze, a fad. His base loved him simply because he was not just another mealy mouthed politician. He didn’t act like a politician, he didn’t think like a politician, and he sure as hell didn’t talk like a politician. A large part of his appeal was/is that he is a total political outsider. Trump was popcorn for the soul to a large group of bitter, disillusioned people who were sick and tired of traditional politics. Besides, he always looks so cool on TV when he curls his lip, points his finger, and snarls “You’re FIRED!” Does Marco Rubio do that? Does Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush? Huh? Huh? Do they?
Trump is falling off of the proverbial cliff with his base supporters right now for two simple reasons. First, he has finally done something that hurt them personally. Trump famously claimed that he could shoot somebody on the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose any votes. That was true, basically since whomever he shot presumably wouldn’t be a Trump supporter, it was no skin off of their nose. But with the Trump shutdown, he’s actually hurting his base supporters. One would assume that with 800,000 federal employees impacted, some of them would be Trump supporters, and guess what? Shit just got real. And also contractors who work for the government, and unlike employees, they most likely won’t be getting back reimbursement when the shutdown ends. Farmers who backed Trump’s trade war with the promise of a leg up from Uncle Sam with their shortfalls can not apply for benefits with the uSDA shut down. Food Truck drivers are no longer pulling up in front of federal buildings, and waiters and waitresses are no longer getting lunch tips from federal employees. And don’t even get them started on their income tax refund being delayed!
But worst of all, they’re just plain, flat out getting bored. Trump is a one trick pony. Any parent knows that you can only play “patty-cake” with a two year old for so long before you have to switch up with “itsy-bitsy-spider.” And the biggest reason that they’re getting bored is because of that nasty woman Nancy Pelosi. It was always fun watching Trump cuff around a bunch of powerless Democrats, while the right wing noise maker chortled with glee. All my life I’ve loved the Three Stooges, but if they air an episode with Curly Joe in it instead of Shemp or Curly, I switch to the Home shopping Network for comic relief. Nancy Pelosi has sent The Pampers President to the corner so often now that he has a “reserved” sign in front of it, and I’m sorry, but that shit just ain’t funny for them.
Not that FOX News, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are going to go down without a fight. Trump is the greatest gift that the right wing slobbersphere has ever had, for two reasons. First, he’s every bit as loud, crude, ignorant, and bigoted as they are, it’s a match made in heaven. But more importantly, Trump is the only president in history who ever actually paid attention to them, and gave them real credibility. because his supporters are by nature listeners of these moronic jackasses, the silly little nit actually believes that they can somehow control his destiny with his own base. Hence that embarrassing spectacle of Mike Pence doing an on-air Linda Lovelace on Rush Limbaugh the other day. Talk about the biter being bit. If Trump goes down, they go back to being interesting only to their own doddering listeners.
So no, I am not in the slightest bit surprised at Trump’s falling poll numbers with his base, the only thing that surprises me is that it took this long. But I would simply warn the media pundits that just because their entire universe is encompassed in the machinations of politics, don’t make the mistake of assuming that it’s the holy bible for the rest of us “outside the beltway.” Just sayin’.
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