This was one of my favorite articles in the mid-aughts.

[matt_zimmer]

It's actually a humor piece, and NOT a subtle one, but it never fails to make me laugh, and I often repost it on my journal, or at least link it. Don't know who wrote it but here a good page for it:

https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/showthread.php/55579-bush-losing-core-supporters-(nsr)?p=801714

It's entitled "Bush Losing Core Supporters" and despite it coming out over a decade BEFORE Trump, I think it explains Trump's inexplicably mediocre but steady approval ratings ten years later entirely.

No matter what Trump did, no matter what he said (even on-camera), he almost never had an approval rating lower than around 41-43%. That was his basement, and it almost never changed. It barely ever rose (except for the start of Covid) but he had a far higher approval rating than someone as openly evil, vulgar, and stupid as him should have had. And some foolish people (like me for example) thought Trump being the worst President we ever had would push his approvals even worse than George W. Bush's, who wound up nearly universally despised by the time he left office. Again, people like me always thought too highly of Americans. And that's not a benefit of the doubt we'll ever deserve again after 2016. It shouldn't have taken 2020 and then Jan 6 for me to realize we as a country are both broken and irredeemable. But I was still very much a Pollyanna even back then. Sue me.

And the actual reason those basement approvals never happened to Trump is because a great deal of Bush's disapproval came from horrible people pissed off he wasn't stupid and evil ENOUGH. Those precise people have nothing to complain about when it comes to Trump, so Trump's support may be low, but it's always steady, it's MUCH higher than Bush's by the time he left office, and never once approached those dregs. It's because the Total Fucking Morons got Trump's back. They recognized the Shit King as one of their own the way they refused to for W.

Our country is broken.

Comments

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[a_natural_beauty]

I love that teacher's strategy! That teacher is a genius I think.

Yeah, I wish they would stop talking about TRUMP..... I feel he is always on the news. And there are so many more important things to report on and talk about in the world. It deeply concerns me how much they talk about him. I worry that it is just getting more and more of his supporters out and about. And I worry about that, because as you know - his supporters aren't exactly the easiest people to get along with.

I feel Trump is one of the worst people in the world right now.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[jasonderoga86]

I'd say he's flat-out evil. Even more than Hitler. Hitler was awful, but he didn't leave his people to die by the hundreds of thousands from a deadly pandemic. Trump on the other hand? He let 500,000 American citizens die from Covid (some of them his own supporters), lied about the fact to hide from accountability for his willful negligence, AND incited violence against the American Chinese and Asian community... and then had 4 Capitol police killed as well as one of his own followers. And why?

Because in his deranged and unhinged mind, he fancies himself a god. A god higher than God himself. A god that many people today consider to be one of the biggest mass murderers of our time, a god with zero empathy and no respect for any life but his own. Absolutely reprehensible. His niece Mary Trump called him "The World's Most Dangerous Man." As far as I'm concerned, she's spot-on.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[a_natural_beauty]

Yes, the way he handled Covid was I think the worst any country handled it! I mean, Trump told people to drink bleach for heaven's sake! wtf... If we would of had anyone else in power during that time it would have been handled so much better. ANYONE.... and I don't say that lightly. I agree with you, handled everything poorly during those years. Even before covid I feel he handled things poorly.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[jasonderoga86]

The final thing I will say on his Covid response is that he is the reason why the United States leads (and STILL leads) the world in Covid mortality by FAR. I mean, it's not even close. And it's also why we have to keep up with the rapid variant mutations... and yet we have people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert Kennedy (a DEMOCRAT!) STILL spreading lies about the vaccines. If I didn't know any better, I say this is Jonestown all over again; the "drink bleach" thing was like the cyanide-laced Kool-Aid and discouraging vaccines is encouraging people to let themselves die from Covid to fight the "Deep State". And now, along with Covid, we have 2 NEW nationwide public health crises -- White supremacist domestic terrorism and it's sibling, day-in-the-life mass shootings continuously ignored by the GOP.

The crimes against humanity this is promoting and people still not giving a damn really disturbs me. Guess Liz Cheney was onto something when she said "idiot" Republicans are being elected, Matt told me something similar referring to criminals like Gaetz and MTG. But I'm focused on voting blue in 2024, continuing to help people, and above all... keeping a clear conscience.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[a_natural_beauty]

Yes, you mention voting blue in 2024. I honestly feel I will always vote blue until the day I am not here anymore. We need to keep voting for those who will care for everyone and not just themselves.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[matt_zimmer]

That's important, Jess.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[matt_zimmer]

I don't think Trump is more evil than Hitler. Maybe in intention he is, but not in action. He never went that far, and if he is never President again he never will. What I WILL say is Trump's supporters are far more evil than Hitler's ever were.

After the war most "Good Germans' were shocked SHOCKED about the concentration camps. "I had no idea!" They knew. But after the fact they had the good sense to pretend they didn't and to be ashamed of them. It's how and why Germany was able to come back from it eventually. But the Red Hats? They KNOW Trump put children in cages and let people in blue states purposefully die of Covid. They KNOW he stole state secrets and started an insurrection when he refused to leave office. They HEARD him brag about grabbing women by the pussy on camera. And instead of being ashamed of the fact and being all "I had no idea!" after he left office, they approve of those actions instead. It's a far cry from the Good Germans' self-denial after the fact.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[jasonderoga86]

Oh, yes. The Red Hats have taken the SS identity and boosted it one hundred-fold. They're so full of contempt for America as it is now that even the Constitution means nothing to them anymore. And they're armed to the teeth. The GOP just dug their own graves by loosening gun laws and facilitating access to war weapons, because now their constituents have plenty of 'em. Even if they were to suddenly grow a conscience and negotiate with Democrats on gun control, the Red Hats will consider them as traitors to Trump (or "RINOs", a stark hypocrisy in truth), and they won't hesitate to slay them all if he gives the order. That whole "stand back and stand by" sentiment is still fresh in their minds.

Trump taking power after Obama's two terms ended shouldn't come across as coincidence to anyone. The Red Hats run on what many call "White grievance." Being led by Obama after Bush made them feel insulted and disgraced (a Black man leading White "Christian" nationalists!). They felt their privileged lifestyle was over. But when Trump came along, he appealed to that grievance and always walked away from accountability when his racially charged rhetoric led to many minorities getting killed in targeted mass shootings. Telling them to back him up as a contingency plan to cling to power on January 6 gave them a sense, a duty, to commit to the "Lost Cause" the KKK preached. They lost, and now, like their Christofascist Leader, they want revenge in blood.

They weren't kidding when they quoted as saying, "We want Dictator Trump!"

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[matt_zimmer]

I have debated Trump supporters a little bewildered and even hurt by my sense of unforgiving rage against them. They think it's a political disagreement. It's not. It's a moral one.

Re: Agreed 100%. Exactly on point. ✊🏾

[jasonderoga86]

Definitely a moral one. Politics has nothing to do with it; never has, never will. I see a similar situation when White American cops cry foul by saying Blacks hate all Whites because of "a few bad cops." My problem with that argument is that the same can be said for ALL people oppressed by the system, which still favors White privilege. When one Latinx is called a "rapist", ALL Latinx are rapists to the GOP and their constituents. When a person of the LGBTQ+ community talks to a kid and is called a "groomer", ALL people of that community are "groomers" to the GOP and their constituents. When a Black person is called "suspiciously criminal" and is beaten up or even shot dead by a White cop, ALL Black people are "suspiciously criminal" to the GOP and the constituents.

Trump supporters who think all White Americans are facing hatred fail to understand that they are (and continue to be) a part of the problem, not the solution, through their actions. Whether it was insensitive or not, Hillary Clinton's comment about "reprogramming MAGA supporters" had the right sentiment. Cults have been condemned for centuries because they are dangerous and antithetical to their own faiths. The cultish mindset forbids questioning the leader, regardless of morals. It's how Jonestown happened, and we all saw the result.