The Donald Trump train is crashing and burning
When pro-Trump folks announced that they were going to hold a rally in Washington DC on September 18th in support of the pro-Trump terrorists who were arrested in relation to the January 6th Capitol attack, many feared the worst. We started seeing the usual fear mongering about how January 6th was just a “test run” for some larger and more successful attack that was yet to come, and that September 18th was going to be it.
But in the days ahead of September 18th, Palmer Report pointed out that the January 6th attack was merely a one-off, made possible by the fact that Trump and his people were still in a position to prevent law enforcement from properly preparing and responding. Just as January 20th turned out to be a non-event, we predicted that September 18th would also be a non-event – and so long as the government continued putting on a superior display of force, these “rallies” would continue to end up being non-events. After all, the one thing far-right snowflakes understand is when they’re outmanned and outgunned.
Sure enough, yesterday’s big pro-Trump, pro-insurrectionist rally ended up being nothing at all. Various news outlets have estimated that just a few hundred people showed up. The rally attendees did little of note before going home.
For the sake of the nation, this is a good thing. Pro-Trump “protesters” have shown time and again that they’re predisposed to violence and have no respect for our system of government. So it’s good that yesterday was a dud. It’s also embarrassing for the pro-Trump crowd; they spent a lot of time hyping and trying to organize yesterday’s event, only to end up looking weak.
You can debate whether yesterday’s lack of turnout was because Trump fans were afraid of ending up in prison like so many of the January 6th participants, or if Trump fans are losing interest in their own movement, or some combination of both. But either way, yesterday was a reminder that Trump’s base is cowardly and withering.
That’s not surprising, given that their “movement” was based almost entirely on Donald Trump’s ability to make the lowest of trash feel special, and he’s all but disappeared since he got booted from office and got banned from social media. His movement was only going to last as long as his stamina did, and he’s clearly out of gas.
Of course there will always be more right wing, anti-government, anti-progress, pro-trash movements coming down the line to try to sabotage American democracy. That’s been the case since the Civil War. But Donald Trump’s particular movement has fallen apart.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report