Nothing Will Change Trump’s MAGA Supporter’s Minds. Nothing.
Just a few days ago, Donald Trump said that President Biden had put a hit out on him. Yes, THAT kind of hit. The kind we see in movies where Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes. Presumably Biden wanted Trump to sleep with the fishes, although, even if that happened, Trump would say that he never met the fishes and they were just saying he slept with them for the money.
I am not exaggerating. Trump literally claimed that by using the same protocols they use during every search, which included the right to use deadly force in self-defense, the Department of Justice intended, on President Biden’s orders, to assassinate him. To off him, to wack, bump, plug and blast him. To send him away on the flying sky-pony. To shuffle him off to the Choirs Invisible.
As Trump himself knows, this is obviously false. Beyond false, it’s also batshit crazy and beyond even that, is extremely dangerous as it risks provoking some of Trump’s more…lets call them “enthusiastic” supporters to take up arms themselves.
It is insanely irresponsible for anyone to say something like that and it is only the latest of the 14,835 things that Donald Trump has said or done which are EACH, individually, utterly disqualifying for the presidency of the United States.
And everytime Trump says something which makes it obvious to anything more sentient than a liverwurst loaf that Trump is unfit to be a Walmart Greeter, let alone anywhere within the same galaxy as the oval office, thousands of people take to social media, link to the latest horrific statement and in a sad, plaintiff whimper say to Trump supporters. “Here! THIS! You can’t possibly still support this man!”
I am no different. I’ve had to buy more memory for my computer to store the full contents of the “What the Actual Fuck??” file where i keep all my fruitless appeals to Trump supporters.
But that’s the thing. It’s never going to work. Donald Trump has, over the course of the last nine years, said so many outrageous things which would have instantly ended any other politician’s career, that large portions of our population are desensitized and immune to outrage. And it’s gotten to the point that there is literally NOTHING Trump could say which would move the political needle.
It’s almost quaint to think of what politicians in the bygone days said, which either ended them or came close. George Romney said that he had been “brainwashed” about Viet Nam. Jimmy Carter admitted that he had “lusted in his heart after other women”. Gerald Ford erroneously claimed that Russia didn’t dominate Eastern Europe. And Barack Obama observed that people tended to “cling to their guns and their religion”. Heavens to Betsy!
That is all, irretrievably, in the past.
To give you a sense of where we are now, I could repeat a bunch of things Trump has said. But that wouldn’t do any good. You, being a rational person, still believe that there is something even worse he could say that would be a game-changer.
No.
I want to be crystal clear. We can not and should not expect, or rely on any lasting political blowback for whatever jaw-dropping comments Trump may make.
So, here are a list of things that Trump hasn’t said yet, but could say directly to any MAGA voter, and it would make absolutely no difference to that voter:
= I hate you and want to kill you.
= Please Welcome our next Vice President, Vladimir Putin!!
= If elected, I will bake all Armenians into pies.
= I will name Kristie Noem to be Secretary of Puppies.
= I will steal money! A lot of it! From you, into my pocket, for me!
= I killed Ron and Nicole.
= I still plan to hang Mike Pence
= Seal Team Six will be redeployed to club baby seals, so we won’t have to change it’s name
= I’m going to take the original Constitution from the Archives and stick it up Rosie O’Donnell’s caboose.
= Hitler did some good things. A lot of good things. A WHOLE lot, if ya know what I’m sayin’
= Term limits, schmerm limits!
= You don’t even know the best crimes I did!
Trump could say any one of these things, or ALL of these things at one of his unhinged, shambolic press conferences and his poll numbers wouldn’t budge. In fact, I have little doubt that within a week or two, he will outdo my imagination and say something even worse.
When confronted with these statements, Lindsey Graham and JD Vance would indignantly defend Trump and then say “something….something…Hunter’s laptop…Something.”
So, those of us who oppose Trump have to give up on our rational, reasonable, but demonstrably untrue belief that anything Trump says between now and the election will result in anything resembling political accountability.
We must also understand what should be obvious by now. Joe Biden does not enjoy the same sort of gaffe-immunity.
Because Biden has spent almost fifty-five years in public life saying and doing mostly sane things, the bar is much higher for him. Any deviation from normalcy or basic decency will be major news for weeks and lead to much gnashing of teeth among the punditry.
Trump can do no wrong, and Biden must be damn near perfect. The only way Biden wins is through hard work, organizing and running a near-flawless campaign.
It may not be fair, but it is where we are. And the sooner we all stop expecting the normal rules of political gravity to apply to Trump, the better we will all be.
