How the Opposition Can Wound Trump

[mcar]

Some interesting perspective here from a Yale professor.

http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/02/17/how-the-opposition-can-wound-trump/

...As you can imagine, my students find Trump supporters confounding. This is not an ideological reaction: I have liberal, libertarian, civic republican, and conservative students. They have been shocked by Trump’s election, because to them he is so transparently unfit to lead anything, much less the US government.

They know he’s unfit, because they know something about politics and policy, and knowing something about politics and policy means they know when the president is demonstrating some kind of allergy to falsifiable objective reality independent of his insecure ego...

What they don’t know is that most people don’t know much about politics, don’t know much about policy, don’t care to understand the details that make up the foundation any position, and don’t think they need to care about understanding those details, because knowledge is not what they trust most in the world.

What they trust is character....

[mcar]

1. A few more snippets

...Remember, they don’t know enough to know he’s lying. What they can see is Trump’s performance: the expressions of strength, the wit and charm (which are evident), and the braggadocio.

Yesterday’s press conference was in fact a hot mess, but imagine watching it with the sound turned off so you don’t know what the president is saying. Imagine watching the president’s gestures, his expression, his sparring with the press. That’s probably a close approximation of what his supporters experience when they watch the president on TV. That’s the extent to which most people assess the president’s policy views. It is style’s mastery over substance...

The opposition must wound the president by focusing on his weakness.

Fact is, the president is weak. We saw that yesterday. When confronted with the fact that he did not win a bigger electoral victory than anyone since Reagan, he immediately backed down, spluttering something about how he had been given that information so it’s not his fault. Some have implied he will never accept the truth, so don’t bother. But that’s an argument of logic and reason. What happened in that brief exchange needs to happen a million times over in order to reveal that the president is weak and that in that weakness his supporters have misplaced their trust.

So, say it with me: The president is weak...

Trump ran on strength. Only he was strong enough to solve our problems. And people believed him. They still believe him. But if the opposition can establish an image of weakness, it will come close to breaking trust in him.

[Nitram]

2. "What they trust is character...." Really? Trumps's own pussy-grabbing, women slandering,

name-calling, compulsive lying, flip-flopping (several times a day on the same topic), bragging, boasting, chest-puffing, whining, victim-playing, bitching, complaining character?

[mcar]

3. Scary, isn't it?

According to this writer, what they see is:

...they don’t know enough to know he’s lying. What they can see is Trump’s performance: the expressions of strength, the wit and charm (which are evident), and the braggadocio.

I've spoken to several Trump supporters here in my red part of FL. They are all perfectly willing to overlook his abhorrent behavior, because he "tells it like it is," "will drain the swamp," or "is a business who will shake up Washington."

I have tried to tell them they can't separate these things but - they do.

[Nitram]

4. You're right, I've had conversations with these people too. But I still don't get it.

I think it's totally tribal and smell-based (like dogs smelling each others assholes). There's no logic to it because it is behavior thy would abhor in anybody else. He's their "Magic Christian". Their Big Daddy who will make everything all right.

[Cha]

5. trump is weak

Mahalo, mcar