Like my fellow naïve leftists, I have been waiting for Trump’s base to turn on him. They didn’t become disenchanted when he didn’t defeat ISIS in thirty days. They didn’t get disgruntled when he helped to torpedo the Obamacare repeal attempt. All those insanely expensive golf vacations? No problem. Filling his Cabinet with Wall Street swampers? They can live with that. The failure of the travel ban? That was the courts trying to keep America lame. The wall? That was a big metaphor, basically. The base didn’t even flinch when Trump cut a deal with those agents of Satan Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on the debt ceiling. Of course, it makes zero sense to expect that the tribe that believes that americafirstarmedgodfearingpatriot.com is a legitimate source of “news” would ever return to the reality fold.
There’s been a lot of press on Steve Bannon’s comment last week on “60 Minutes” that the Comey firing would go down as the biggest mistake in the modern political era. In the same interview, Bannon also pointed to the DACA debate within the Republican Party as a possible cause of the GOP getting hammered in the 2018 midterm elections.
I don’t believe that Trump won primarily because he spoke to a class of people who had been ignored by mainstream economic policies. That was a factor, but I think what really energized his campaign was his relentless, aggressive focus on the dark, zenophobic, anti-immigrant, put-the-white-man-back-on-top, rotten piece of the American psyche. That’s why the wall was always the biggest applause line at his frenzied rallies.
Well, Trump may have finally booted it with his base yesterday, when news came out that he had brokered another deal with Schumer and Pelosi: to re-legislate the DACA “amnesty” program that he had just killed the week before. And to NOT get funding for his stupid wall in return.
This reversal may be different, if the initial reaction from the media and political influencers within the Trump cult is any indication.
As of today, Ann Coulter asks “Who DOESN’T want Trump impeached?” Breitbart’s screaming headline yesterday was “Amnesty Don,” and the comments under the accompanying article included “Put a fork in Trump. He is done” and “I can reconcile Trump caving on virtually any issue.Amnesty and not building the wall are not one of them.” Lou Dobbs’ tag line yesterday was “Deep State Wins, Huge Loss for #MAGA.” Sean Hannity laid down the gauntlet on Twitter: “If @POTUS doesn’t keep that promise, and goes for amnesty, it will be the political equivalent of ‘read my lips, no new taxes.” Congressman Steven King, who dreams about young Mexican drug smuggles with calves the size of cantaloupes, tweeted the coming apocalypse: “If AP is correct, Trump base is blown up, destroyed, irreparable, and disillusioned beyond repair. No promise is credible.” John Walsh piled on: “Trump got screwed by Chuck and Nancy. Trump just screwed his base.”
Worse yet for Trump, Jeff Flake THANKED him in his tweet last night.
It’s really difficult to figure out what is going on. The one and only talent Trump seemed to possess was a deep, instinctive understanding of his base. Only a week ago, when he announced the end of the DACA program, he seemed to be once again laser focused, against all political odds, on pleasing his tribe. The Dealmaker of All Dealmakers may have just driven the first wedge between himself and the voters who propelled him to victory—a self-inflicted gunshot to the head that may be just as lethal as the Comey firing. This DACA dive could be the incident that starts a long, inexorable peeling away of his base.
Why is Trump doing this? No doubt he wants to get DACA over with—he never could figure out which way to go on it—and get on with tax reform. No doubt he despises McConnell and Ryan and is trying to rub their faces in a series of deals with the Democrats.
Most intriguing of all, Trump is indicating through his tweets that he has a lot of sympathy for the Dreamers. Could that really be true? Could that empathy—instantly translated by the unwashed Trumpist hordes as the apostasy of “amnesty”—be driving a wedge inside his own feverish cranium between Trump the manipulator of white-pride voters and Trump—dare I say it?—the human being?
