I have had an epiphany. Everybody talks about how loyal, devout, and even slavish Trumpenstein’s True Believers are. But what I saw in the last 36 hours has led me to a different conclusion. They’re not fervent supporters, they’re a cult.
What made the connection click for me was repetition. Since Trump took Hillary’s bait and defended himself on his “Miss Piggy” comments about a past Miss Universe, Alicia Mercado, both CNN and MSNBC have had live reporters interview Trump supporters at rallies. In this instance they were all female supporters because of the subject matter. They were asked about Trump’s comments, and whether they were “personally” offended that Mein Furor had attacked another woman on her physical appearance. The responses were what made the connection for me.
Dear God, it was like every one of them had received the Trump surrogate talking points sheet. They all had close variations on the same answer. No, they were not offended, this was just another example of the Hillary “hit machine”, and they blamed the press for daring to cover it. Their disgust for both Clinton and the media for daring to question their leader was apparent. The man is a demagogue, and like lemmings, his supporters are ready to follow him over the cliff.
Look at his rallies. His supporters eyes almost never leave the stage, except to abuse the occasional protester. The expected, prolonged chants of “Lock her up!” and “Build that wall!”, while he smirks and nods. The enthusiastic response to “Das Donald’s Greatest Hit ” lines, spoken for the 11,847th time. These people have not just pledged their support and loyalty to him, they have pledged their fealty.
But the question is, what happens to them on November 9th? There has been much discussion on how or whether the GOP can stitch this back together again after the Trump debacle, and how to do it. Good luck with that particular Humpty Dumpty Reince, or whichever addlepated GOPasaur replaces him. They ain’t coming back to the fold. They have seen their true path, and it is mayhem and destruction, and not following some namby-pamby GOP candidate around. Oh sure, there are plenty of far right GOP candidates who won’t mind spreading a little bigotry and sexism around for votes, but it won’t work, for one simple reason.
The reason is name recognition. Trump was a once in a lifetime phenomenon, bigger than life. His tenure on “The Apprentice”, and his flagrant lifestyle made him a universally known household name. Certainly, some other politician can come along spouting the Trump rhetoric, but True Believers will look at him of her and say to themselves, “Who the hell is this clown, and why is he channeling the Glorious Leader”? Trump was a one shot shooting star, there is no one out there that can replicate him.
There are two things that we have to do here. The first is to get Hillary elected. Not only that, but to chip away at the House GOP majority as much as we can, and to take back the Senate. But just as important, we must devote time and resources towards eating into the GOP majority in state houses. Changing racial demographics will help some there, places like GA, SC, TX and AZ are already seriously in play. Now we have to register and GOTV like hell in every one of these places. It may not be enough to make a difference this year, but hey, every bit helps, and it may well be critical in what comes next.
The 2018 midterms will be critical. The first thing we have to do is to fill out the rosters in demographically changing Red states. You can’t unseat an incumbent if the little shit is running unopposed. We have to give the state parties in those states the funds and resources needed to find, cultivate and push forward qualified candidates to give these GOP ass gaskets a run for their money. If we do, this is where we can cash in on all of the efforts to register and push voter to the polls this November. And we can work just as hard to register new voters then and GOTV to narrow the gaps further.
There is some kind of an old saying that “Nothing breeds success like success”. Kos has moaned over and over again that the Democratic problem is a lack of turnout and enthusiasm in the midterms. But if we can get Hillary in, retake the Senate, dig into the majority in the House, and start making progress in the state houses, there’s your motivation. If we can show Democrats that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it ain’t the train barreling down on us, we can do this, especially if Hillary is able to get some important stuff done in the first two years. It ain’t a quick fix, but hell, other than a can of Fix-A-Flat for your tire, or a roll of duct tape, what is? But the point is, if we motivate, show some success this fall, and pull on the same oar, we can get this done!
Thanks as always for reading!