Trump supporters have never been so rattled as they are by this news
Whenever I write about bad news for Donald Trump – and these days it’s a steady stream of bad news for him – it ends up being a de facto opportunity to observe how rattled Trump supporters are by the news. If they’re more rattled than usual, their degree of trolling on social media will be more aggressive, vicious, and conspiracy theory-filled than usual. If nothing else, their unhinged behavior represents an opportunity to take their temperature.
To that end, one piece of news this week set off Trump supporters on social media in a way that I’ve frankly never seen before, and sent them ranting and trolling on a histrionic level that stood out as jarring even for them. No, that news wasn’t the fact that Trump got indicted again. It was the new polling from Reuters-IPSOS that says roughly half of Republicans will refuse to vote for Trump in the 2024 general election if he’s been convicted of a felony by then.
It’s not difficult to see why this news is so triggering for Trump supporters. Plenty of them have gone down the rabbit hole with him when he’s claimed that his criminal indictments somehow magically make him stronger and more invincible in the political realm. It’s what allows them to pretend that they’re not actually witnessing the systematic dismantling of Trump, and instead are watching his coronation. It’s a delusional fantasy, and they know it’s a delusional fantasy. But after having wasted eight years of their lives investing themselves in the lamest joke of a politician in the history of the nation, they’re committed to pretending that they haven’t been throwing their lives away. They have to pretend that Trump is still somehow magically viable and is stronger than ever, so they can get through the day.
But when polling reveals that no one outside Trump’s base sees things this way at all, and that Republican general election voters in general are increasingly seeing Trump as toast, it shatters Trump supporters’ illusion. It forces them to remember that no one outside their little cult still considers Trump to be anything but a washed-up has been. It also makes clear to Trump supporters that Trump’s criminal charges, trials, and convictions really are making him politically nonviable. Even their deranged minds can’t rationalize the news that even if Trump somehow ended up with the Republican nomination on his way to prison, he’d lose the general election in the biggest blowout in presidential history.
So it’s not surprising that, of all the terrible news out there for Donald Trump right now, his supporters are having the hardest time with the news that no one outside their little cult is going to vote for this guy once he’s convicted at trial. It’s why they’re going out of their minds in the name of trying to make this news go away. It’s why they’re frantically trolling anyone who posts this news on social media. They claim it’s a fake poll (it’s not). They claim that anyone quoting the poll numbers is just making it up. They yell whatever angry stupid things they need to yell, in the hope of convincing themselves that the news isn’t true.
Trump supporters are, without exception, broken people who think that supporting Trump makes them special. They see themselves as losers, but they’re certain that Trump will magically take over and make them winners. That fantasy is the only thing that gets them through the day. And when they see cold hard numbers that make clear that their fantasy isn’t a real thing, it sends them completely out of their minds.
I’ve said many a time that the folks on our side who spend every day yelling “Oh no, Trump is going to get away with it all, we’re doomed” are causing great harm to our side. That kind of talk, in addition to being obviously untrue, only serves to embolden Trump’s remaining supporters – because it tells them that Trump somehow magically still has a chance.
The only effective way to deal with Trump supporters is to spend every day trying to break their spirit. When news comes along that makes clear just how washed up and nonviable Trump is, we should be shouting that news from the rooftops. We can see the demotivating effect that this kind of news has on them. It’s how we defeat them. It’s how we break them. It’s how we get them to give up and shut up, and erase what’s left of Trump’s support in the process.
