I have sat and tried to figure out for the past couple of years how Trump has such a strong and devoted base of supporters; people who, regardless of what comes out of the President's mouth or policies, support him unconditionally.
I finally think I figured out where some of it came from. People around the country have been unhappy for a long time due to many different things. Political parties have grown apart to a point they aren't willing to listen to or work with one another.
People wanted something major to change; a shake up of massive proportions to improve our way of life in this country. They saw the possibility of that in Trump. He was a rich businessman who didn't have a filter and who denigrated those who stood up against him. He had catch phrases that people liked, made promises that he said he would keep, and created nick names for all of his political foes. Watching the Republicans going up against him until he was chosen as the Republican Nominee was funny. It seemed like a big joke for a while, and then it got more serious.
It got so serious that I think the most surprised person on election day of 2016 was Donald Trump himself. I don't think he ever expected to win. I think he expected to become even more of a household name and ramp up the validity of his business' name as a result of the political run, garnering him more future profits.
What happened, however, is completely different than that. He won. He didn't win the popular vote...not by a long shot, but he won the Electoral Vote, which is all that matters in the Presidential Election. Trump found himself in a situation that aligned with the one thing that has driven him his entire life...his EGO. Trump has always needed to be treated as the most important person in every room, and as of January of 2017, he became the most important person in every room he entered.
The only major problem with that was that he didn't know where to start. Trump had never planned to be President and therefore wasn't prepared to be President. Trump doesn't like briefings. He likes things simplified to the point they are all on one page; anything more is overwhelming and he loses interest. Trump loves golf. He spent his entire campaign and before his campaign talking about how much tax payer money the country was wasting on Obama's golf trips. Trump said that he would be at the White House almost all the time and rarely ever vacation or take time away. Interestingly enough, Trump has been golfing countless times during his Presidency thus far, seemingly forgetting the things he said during and before the campaign....because he never expected to have to live up to his words.
Trump ran on the Wall. The Great Wall between the United States and Mexico. He said countless times that the Wall would be paid for by Mexico. He knew there was no way another country would pay for a wall. He knew that and still ran with it because it brought applause and support his way. Here was a man calling out another country and saying that if HE was in office, HE would force another country to fix one of our problems.
Lock her Up! With all of the negative press surrounding Hillary coming into the election season, Trump fed off of that and spouted off about her all the time. It sent his base of supporters into an absolute frenzy. They fed on it, and as time went on and Trump became President, a horrible realization came over many of us. Hillary Clinton was the absolute worst pick for a Candidate at that time. People were done with dynasties. The Clinton name had been in Washington for decades, and at many times was connected to very negative press. That dynasty style history coupled with the email scandal that Trump continually pushed and the FBI brought to the forefront just before the election; those items just painted Hillary as the wrong person for the job. Yes, she got the Popular Vote, but she lost the Electoral Votes in states she absolutely should have historically won based on analytics.
It was the perfect storm of the wrong Democratic Candidate carrying baggage and having some baggage brought up again and again, coupled with a new face on the Republican side that people could relate to. A person who said it like it was, talked simplistically about the issues and ran on a platform built off of the emotional hot button items at the time.
But here we are, a year-and-a-half later, with a President who has lied more times during his presidency than most people lie in a lifetime; thousands of times. We have a president who has had and covered up extra marital affairs, who has said things about women and minorities that would have had any senator or representative removed from office, and would have had former presidents in the hot seat with the nation. For some reason, though, Trump's base is accepting of the egotism, xenophobia, bigotry, and lies. WHY?
One reason is because they are believing the "Positives" that Trump has had as President. They think the Tax plan is a huge win, even though the majority of the benefit goes to the 1%, and the benefit seen by the middle and lower classes has a sunset clause built in. Oh, and even thought the plan sends the country into an additional 1.5 Trillion Dollars of debt. None of that matters because his supporters listen to the talking heads on Fox who always stand behind everything the President does and lift him up with praise.
Trump talks about the families being reunited as a victory for himself, even though there are two very strong counter points to that statement. First, Trump was the one who signed off on the policy to remove families at the border, unlike former presidents, so he started the problem to begin with. Second, there are still hundreds of children who have still not been reunited with their families. Why, because in many cases their parents have already been deported. Even though this is an absolute dumpster fire of a situation, Trump comes out and calls it a victory, and his base stands behind him with complete support.
Trump has a meeting with the leader of North Korea, gets absolutely no solid, documented, promises to denuclearize from him, but gives up the Joint Military Exercises with South Korea as a concession. The Joint Exercises are vitally important to readiness, and he just gave it all away, and shortly after the meeting Trump said to the world that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. Update, evidence has shown that North Korea is continuing to build and not dismantle their nuclear program. Also, Trump lifted up the Autocratic leader of North Korea to a level no enemy should ever be lifted up. He treated him as an equal, said unbelievably great things about him, and gave him all of the Propaganda he needs to show his country how powerful he is for the next 2 decades as he continues to kill people, imprison people, and starve people. But, Trump's base loved it. They said no other President had ever done anything like that and it was great. Sure, but have you ever thought of the fact that no other President had ever done anything like that because it was the wrong way to approach the problem with North Korea? Treating enemies as friends is never the answer in international politics.
Trump has a meeting with the leader of Russia, Putin. Putin is a former KGB operative who has and will continue to play Trump like a fiddle. Trump, like during his North Korean summit, had nothing but amazing things to say about Putin. He complimented Putin so much that he chose to believe an enemy of the United States over his own Intelligence Agencies (that would be ALL Intelligence Agencies) regarding meddling in the election. He lifted Putin up as a moral equal to the United States, didn't challenge him on the annexation of Crimea, the poisonings of people with nerve agent, shooting down a plane, or any of the other horrible things he has done...not even election meddling, something that was very proven through numerous indictments just days before the summit. High level military officials in Russia were indicted by the Mueller Investigatory team with meddling in the 2016 election, and Trump just didn't make one demand of Putin. He just bowed down to an enemy of the United States. After coming home, Trump was forced to read a prepared statement to walk back one of his comments (would vs. wouldn't), which was absolute horse shit and everyone knows it. Even when he was walking his comments back and "agreeing with US intelligence agencies", he couldn't help but still say that Russia meddled, but it could have been other people because there's a lot of people out there. No, it was RUSSIA!.
Now, I will say that even Fox News was at least a little critical of Trump after the Russia Summit, but that quieted down quite a bit right after he read that prepared statement and changed two lettesr and an apostrophe. Everything was great again with Trump after that, even though everything else he said during that summit contradicted the simple change he made. Supporters were once again 100% behind their Trump.
The Tariffs Trump has imposed are absolutely not a Republican supported thing, but Trump's base was all about the tariffs. Then Trump came out and announced they would be providing 12 Billion in Aid to the farmers affected by the retaliatory tariffs put into place, talking about how he won't let other countries destroy what our farmers have built. Trump built himself up to be the hero once again, even though the only damn reason the farmers are suffering is because of his own tariffs; tariffs he instated in the name of "National Security" so that he wouldn't need to run them through congress.
Trump continually treats United States Allies as if they are enemies, denigrating them continually and even going so far to call them "foes". At the G7 Summit Trump said that Russia should be included and it should be the G8 again. He referenced that "Something happened and Russia was kicked out of the G8" but that Russia should be included again. Yeah something happened! Russia Annexed Crimea! And since that they shot an airplane out of the sky, poisoned people on European soil with nerve agent, meddled in elections, etc. Absolute insanity, and then Trump spoke down about his allies as he left early to head to the North Korea Summit and suck up to their leader as if they were best friends. Hard Line Trump Supporters weren't bothered by that at all, but the rest of the world was.
Trump has denigrated individuals, the news media, companies, the NFL (and specifically the players, mostly minority players, who kneel during the anthem in protest of injustice. Trump called them sons-of-bitches), and others, in public; saying things that are completely inappropriate and inconsiderate, not to mention very un-Presidential. His supporters love it.
Trump has made racial comments, calling Mexicans coming into our country rapists, drug dealers, and murderers...but some are probably good people he said. Trump called the countries minority immigrants come from 'shitholes'. Trump said that the judge handling the Trump University case couldn't be fair because he was Mexican. Trump denigrated two specific Gold Star families who happened to be minority families. He bragged about being able to get whatever he wanted from women and said the infamous line, 'Grab em' by the pussy'. He bragged about being able to go backstage at his pageants and watch the women dress. He talked about one of the many women who accused him for sexual harassment, essentially saying she wasn't good looking enough for him to even consider. The list goes on, and Trump's supporters just don't seem to care. "He's rough around the edges", "He says it like it is", and "He isn't politically correct" are some of the responses people who support Trump have given for his comments. Trump didn't even get a lot of backlash from the right regarding his comments after the Charlottesville event when he said there were good people on both sides. Really, there were good people on the side where everyone was carrying a TiKi Torch and screaming horrible things about Jewish People? Even the makers of the TiKi Torch came out and separated themselves from that group.
Trump and his children are under investigation for misuse of the Trump Foundation, a major issue that is barely even covered in the media, which blows my mind. Trump's former lawyer and fixer is under major investigation. Trump's former Campaign Chairman just started his court case and is looking at decades behind bars. Other former Trump Campaign Officials have pled guilty. There are countless charges filed out of the Mueller Investigation and many guilty pleas to this point, but Trump does everything in his power to discredit the investigation, calling it a witch hunt. It's only a witch hunt if you don't plan on them finding anything. It seems that Mueller is finding an awful lot of witches to this point, and more keep coming out of the cracks.
Trump and his cronies, including Giuliani, are on a rampage to discredit anything that could possibly be leading to proof the President is guilty of something. They are doing it in such a way they are acting as if trapped in a room with the walls closing in on them, while they feverishly try to escape. If there was no collusion, then why all the twitter rants. If there was no collusion, then why is Rudy going on every network trying to discredit a perfectly above bar series of investigations. They know there is evidence out there and that Mueller either has it or is going to have it very soon, and they are going into Nixon Mode trying to change the narrative to stay afloat so they can try to come out the back end of all of this as victims rather than perpetrators.
The conflicts of interest that are surrounding the President and his Children are immeasurable at this point, as none of them did what they should have done when transitioning into their governmental positions.
All of this and so much more, and yet there is the base. The base of Trump voters who could watch Trump shoot and kill someone on live television and somehow find a way to put positive spin on it, are still out there supporting him 100%. And then there is Congress. The Congressional Republicans are disgraceful at this point. Some have spoken out against certain things the President has done, but overall, they have done nothing to stop him. Words don't fix what the President is doing, actions do, and Congress doesn't know what action is at this point.
So answer me this question. How, after all of the lies, mistruths, horrible denigration, treating foes as friends and friends as foes, the investigations, and everything else that has happened and is happening, how can people still be supporters of Trump?
If I was the last person on Earth and was trapped on a desert island alone, and received a message in a bottle stating that I could either choose to have Trump as the second person alive with me on the island and he would come with all of the food and shelter we would need to survive the rest of our lives, or I would die....here I come Saint Peter!
DUNK
I finally think I figured out where some of it came from. People around the country have been unhappy for a long time due to many different things. Political parties have grown apart to a point they aren't willing to listen to or work with one another.
People wanted something major to change; a shake up of massive proportions to improve our way of life in this country. They saw the possibility of that in Trump. He was a rich businessman who didn't have a filter and who denigrated those who stood up against him. He had catch phrases that people liked, made promises that he said he would keep, and created nick names for all of his political foes. Watching the Republicans going up against him until he was chosen as the Republican Nominee was funny. It seemed like a big joke for a while, and then it got more serious.
It got so serious that I think the most surprised person on election day of 2016 was Donald Trump himself. I don't think he ever expected to win. I think he expected to become even more of a household name and ramp up the validity of his business' name as a result of the political run, garnering him more future profits.
What happened, however, is completely different than that. He won. He didn't win the popular vote...not by a long shot, but he won the Electoral Vote, which is all that matters in the Presidential Election. Trump found himself in a situation that aligned with the one thing that has driven him his entire life...his EGO. Trump has always needed to be treated as the most important person in every room, and as of January of 2017, he became the most important person in every room he entered.
The only major problem with that was that he didn't know where to start. Trump had never planned to be President and therefore wasn't prepared to be President. Trump doesn't like briefings. He likes things simplified to the point they are all on one page; anything more is overwhelming and he loses interest. Trump loves golf. He spent his entire campaign and before his campaign talking about how much tax payer money the country was wasting on Obama's golf trips. Trump said that he would be at the White House almost all the time and rarely ever vacation or take time away. Interestingly enough, Trump has been golfing countless times during his Presidency thus far, seemingly forgetting the things he said during and before the campaign....because he never expected to have to live up to his words.
Trump ran on the Wall. The Great Wall between the United States and Mexico. He said countless times that the Wall would be paid for by Mexico. He knew there was no way another country would pay for a wall. He knew that and still ran with it because it brought applause and support his way. Here was a man calling out another country and saying that if HE was in office, HE would force another country to fix one of our problems.
Lock her Up! With all of the negative press surrounding Hillary coming into the election season, Trump fed off of that and spouted off about her all the time. It sent his base of supporters into an absolute frenzy. They fed on it, and as time went on and Trump became President, a horrible realization came over many of us. Hillary Clinton was the absolute worst pick for a Candidate at that time. People were done with dynasties. The Clinton name had been in Washington for decades, and at many times was connected to very negative press. That dynasty style history coupled with the email scandal that Trump continually pushed and the FBI brought to the forefront just before the election; those items just painted Hillary as the wrong person for the job. Yes, she got the Popular Vote, but she lost the Electoral Votes in states she absolutely should have historically won based on analytics.
It was the perfect storm of the wrong Democratic Candidate carrying baggage and having some baggage brought up again and again, coupled with a new face on the Republican side that people could relate to. A person who said it like it was, talked simplistically about the issues and ran on a platform built off of the emotional hot button items at the time.
But here we are, a year-and-a-half later, with a President who has lied more times during his presidency than most people lie in a lifetime; thousands of times. We have a president who has had and covered up extra marital affairs, who has said things about women and minorities that would have had any senator or representative removed from office, and would have had former presidents in the hot seat with the nation. For some reason, though, Trump's base is accepting of the egotism, xenophobia, bigotry, and lies. WHY?
One reason is because they are believing the "Positives" that Trump has had as President. They think the Tax plan is a huge win, even though the majority of the benefit goes to the 1%, and the benefit seen by the middle and lower classes has a sunset clause built in. Oh, and even thought the plan sends the country into an additional 1.5 Trillion Dollars of debt. None of that matters because his supporters listen to the talking heads on Fox who always stand behind everything the President does and lift him up with praise.
Trump talks about the families being reunited as a victory for himself, even though there are two very strong counter points to that statement. First, Trump was the one who signed off on the policy to remove families at the border, unlike former presidents, so he started the problem to begin with. Second, there are still hundreds of children who have still not been reunited with their families. Why, because in many cases their parents have already been deported. Even though this is an absolute dumpster fire of a situation, Trump comes out and calls it a victory, and his base stands behind him with complete support.
Trump has a meeting with the leader of North Korea, gets absolutely no solid, documented, promises to denuclearize from him, but gives up the Joint Military Exercises with South Korea as a concession. The Joint Exercises are vitally important to readiness, and he just gave it all away, and shortly after the meeting Trump said to the world that North Korea is no longer a nuclear threat. Update, evidence has shown that North Korea is continuing to build and not dismantle their nuclear program. Also, Trump lifted up the Autocratic leader of North Korea to a level no enemy should ever be lifted up. He treated him as an equal, said unbelievably great things about him, and gave him all of the Propaganda he needs to show his country how powerful he is for the next 2 decades as he continues to kill people, imprison people, and starve people. But, Trump's base loved it. They said no other President had ever done anything like that and it was great. Sure, but have you ever thought of the fact that no other President had ever done anything like that because it was the wrong way to approach the problem with North Korea? Treating enemies as friends is never the answer in international politics.
Trump has a meeting with the leader of Russia, Putin. Putin is a former KGB operative who has and will continue to play Trump like a fiddle. Trump, like during his North Korean summit, had nothing but amazing things to say about Putin. He complimented Putin so much that he chose to believe an enemy of the United States over his own Intelligence Agencies (that would be ALL Intelligence Agencies) regarding meddling in the election. He lifted Putin up as a moral equal to the United States, didn't challenge him on the annexation of Crimea, the poisonings of people with nerve agent, shooting down a plane, or any of the other horrible things he has done...not even election meddling, something that was very proven through numerous indictments just days before the summit. High level military officials in Russia were indicted by the Mueller Investigatory team with meddling in the 2016 election, and Trump just didn't make one demand of Putin. He just bowed down to an enemy of the United States. After coming home, Trump was forced to read a prepared statement to walk back one of his comments (would vs. wouldn't), which was absolute horse shit and everyone knows it. Even when he was walking his comments back and "agreeing with US intelligence agencies", he couldn't help but still say that Russia meddled, but it could have been other people because there's a lot of people out there. No, it was RUSSIA!.
Now, I will say that even Fox News was at least a little critical of Trump after the Russia Summit, but that quieted down quite a bit right after he read that prepared statement and changed two lettesr and an apostrophe. Everything was great again with Trump after that, even though everything else he said during that summit contradicted the simple change he made. Supporters were once again 100% behind their Trump.
The Tariffs Trump has imposed are absolutely not a Republican supported thing, but Trump's base was all about the tariffs. Then Trump came out and announced they would be providing 12 Billion in Aid to the farmers affected by the retaliatory tariffs put into place, talking about how he won't let other countries destroy what our farmers have built. Trump built himself up to be the hero once again, even though the only damn reason the farmers are suffering is because of his own tariffs; tariffs he instated in the name of "National Security" so that he wouldn't need to run them through congress.
Trump continually treats United States Allies as if they are enemies, denigrating them continually and even going so far to call them "foes". At the G7 Summit Trump said that Russia should be included and it should be the G8 again. He referenced that "Something happened and Russia was kicked out of the G8" but that Russia should be included again. Yeah something happened! Russia Annexed Crimea! And since that they shot an airplane out of the sky, poisoned people on European soil with nerve agent, meddled in elections, etc. Absolute insanity, and then Trump spoke down about his allies as he left early to head to the North Korea Summit and suck up to their leader as if they were best friends. Hard Line Trump Supporters weren't bothered by that at all, but the rest of the world was.
Trump has denigrated individuals, the news media, companies, the NFL (and specifically the players, mostly minority players, who kneel during the anthem in protest of injustice. Trump called them sons-of-bitches), and others, in public; saying things that are completely inappropriate and inconsiderate, not to mention very un-Presidential. His supporters love it.
Trump has made racial comments, calling Mexicans coming into our country rapists, drug dealers, and murderers...but some are probably good people he said. Trump called the countries minority immigrants come from 'shitholes'. Trump said that the judge handling the Trump University case couldn't be fair because he was Mexican. Trump denigrated two specific Gold Star families who happened to be minority families. He bragged about being able to get whatever he wanted from women and said the infamous line, 'Grab em' by the pussy'. He bragged about being able to go backstage at his pageants and watch the women dress. He talked about one of the many women who accused him for sexual harassment, essentially saying she wasn't good looking enough for him to even consider. The list goes on, and Trump's supporters just don't seem to care. "He's rough around the edges", "He says it like it is", and "He isn't politically correct" are some of the responses people who support Trump have given for his comments. Trump didn't even get a lot of backlash from the right regarding his comments after the Charlottesville event when he said there were good people on both sides. Really, there were good people on the side where everyone was carrying a TiKi Torch and screaming horrible things about Jewish People? Even the makers of the TiKi Torch came out and separated themselves from that group.
Trump and his children are under investigation for misuse of the Trump Foundation, a major issue that is barely even covered in the media, which blows my mind. Trump's former lawyer and fixer is under major investigation. Trump's former Campaign Chairman just started his court case and is looking at decades behind bars. Other former Trump Campaign Officials have pled guilty. There are countless charges filed out of the Mueller Investigation and many guilty pleas to this point, but Trump does everything in his power to discredit the investigation, calling it a witch hunt. It's only a witch hunt if you don't plan on them finding anything. It seems that Mueller is finding an awful lot of witches to this point, and more keep coming out of the cracks.
Trump and his cronies, including Giuliani, are on a rampage to discredit anything that could possibly be leading to proof the President is guilty of something. They are doing it in such a way they are acting as if trapped in a room with the walls closing in on them, while they feverishly try to escape. If there was no collusion, then why all the twitter rants. If there was no collusion, then why is Rudy going on every network trying to discredit a perfectly above bar series of investigations. They know there is evidence out there and that Mueller either has it or is going to have it very soon, and they are going into Nixon Mode trying to change the narrative to stay afloat so they can try to come out the back end of all of this as victims rather than perpetrators.
The conflicts of interest that are surrounding the President and his Children are immeasurable at this point, as none of them did what they should have done when transitioning into their governmental positions.
All of this and so much more, and yet there is the base. The base of Trump voters who could watch Trump shoot and kill someone on live television and somehow find a way to put positive spin on it, are still out there supporting him 100%. And then there is Congress. The Congressional Republicans are disgraceful at this point. Some have spoken out against certain things the President has done, but overall, they have done nothing to stop him. Words don't fix what the President is doing, actions do, and Congress doesn't know what action is at this point.
So answer me this question. How, after all of the lies, mistruths, horrible denigration, treating foes as friends and friends as foes, the investigations, and everything else that has happened and is happening, how can people still be supporters of Trump?
If I was the last person on Earth and was trapped on a desert island alone, and received a message in a bottle stating that I could either choose to have Trump as the second person alive with me on the island and he would come with all of the food and shelter we would need to survive the rest of our lives, or I would die....here I come Saint Peter!
DUNK
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