How to finish Donald Trump off

| 9:50 pm EDT June 8, 2020
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We’ve heard the mantra so many times over the past few years, it’s almost become a given: Donald Trump’s base won’t abandon him no matter what he says, what he does, or how badly he screws up. The thing is, though, Trump’s base alone isn’t why he’s in office.

Any demographic analysis will tell you that Trump’s true base – the people who worship him – are somewhere between 15% and 20% of the country. It’s what my math says. It’s what FiveThirtyEight’s math says. The thing is, though, his approval rating has always been around 40%. This means that in addition to his base, Trump has also always had a large group of people who have never worshipped him, and have only supported him passively. They lean in his ideological direction, or they’re simply with him because the economy is strong, or stick with him for other passive reasons.

Now that Trump has botched a pandemic, the economy is teetering, and he’s shown no leadership during nationwide civil discord, his non-base supporters are finally starting to incrementally turn against him. His recent approval rating numbers and poll numbers prove it.

I said from day one that Donald Trump’s base was irrelevant. It was always about the people outside his base who were just sort of hanging in there with him without thinking about it too much. If he ever lost them, he’d be toast. Now he’s on the brink of losing them. Want to finish Trump off? Focus on those people.