The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
August 19, 2017
As the Trump presidency has continued to spiral downward, one large group of voters have stuck with Donald Trump, regardless of the magnitude of his multitude of missteps. They are the Hard-Core Trump Base. These voters can be classified as follows: 1) Immovable Ideological Republicans, 2) The Alt-Right, 3) The Disaffected Middle Class Unemployed 4) Reasonable Republicans, 5) People Who Are Stubbornly Unwilling to Admit They Were Wrong.
By no means are all of these people similar to one another. Each segment of The Hard-Core Base have their own reasons for supporting the President. If the people outside that base want to try to understand how anyone can still support Donald Trump, they need to realize that each of these five segments have distinct hard-core passions which are driving their unflagging support of the President.
The Immovable Ideological Republicans
Several million who voted for Mr. Trump were in this category. They are as ideologically driven as are Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, or Cuban communists, of whom there are no longer very many in any of those countries. They are as fiercely committed to their political party as are Quebecois nationalists in Canada, of whom there are not many. They are as devoted to the Republican Party as hard-core Scientologists are devoted to Scientology, of whom there are a declining number.
Immoveable Ideological Republicans are as committed to their notion of Republicanism as were those hard-core, immovable, ideological Democrats in 2016 who truly believed Hillary Clinton was the best and most qualified candidate for President in American history. And there are still millions of Immovable Ideological Republicans, like any of the other particular ideologues mentioned above.
Immovable Ideological Republicans were reviled by the very thought of Hillary Clinton in the election of 2016. Their innards churned to imagine that she might become President. Millions of them felt that way in November of last year and they still feel that way in late summer this year, despite the unraveling of the Trump presidency. They are standing fast in their support of their man, because they are hard-core, immovable, and ideological.
The New Alt-Right
The Alt-Right are by far the smallest but the most vocal of the hard-core Trump base. Very recent highly publicized events may be increasing their numbers exponentially, however. Charlottesville and the publicity resulting from it is a splendid recruiting tool for the kind of easily swayed people who are drawn to the Alternative Right and to other such extremist groups.
Strangely (but then, perhaps not so strangely), the Alt-Right seem to be the group the President has been the most careful to keep cultivating and not to alienate. I say “not so strangely” because there is no coherent explanation for what the President does. He does it because he is Donald Trump, and he is the President, and he likes to do what he does. It greatly feeds his insatiable ego to do it.
The best illustration of Mr. Trump’s aversion to distancing himself from this part of his base was evident in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12. Charlottesville is a bastion of Virginia liberalism. On the night of Friday, August 11, a large gathering of Neo-Nazis carried torches and shouted anti-Jewish and anti-black slogans, while chanting phrases from the days of Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. They were challenged by a group loudly opposed to white-supremacy ideology. They were as vociferous against hate speech as the Neo-Nazis were intent on proclaiming their particular brand of racial and religious bigotry.
The next day a white supremacist young man slammed his car into a group of demonstrators who were protesting the presence of the Neo-Nazis. His inspiration for this enacted hatred no doubt came from similar ISIS attacks, although Neo-Nazis hate Muslims as much as Jews or blacks. Not until the following day, a Sunday, did the President say anything at all about these events. In a typical Trumpian way, he blamed both groups of demonstrators for the violence. His statement was so inane and muddled that the Neo-Nazis took it to be a statement of affirmation for them. It could quite easily be interpreted as such.
The next day, Monday, the President read a carefully prepared statement (which he obviously did not write), clearly condemning the violence of the white-supremacist group. He especially excoriated the Neo-Nazi young man who drove his car into the group of protesters against the white supremacists, killing one of them and injuring thirty others. But after have blasted the white-supremacist violence on Monday, on Tuesday in off-the-cuff remarks, the President once more declared that both demonstrations were equally to blame for what transpired in Thomas Jefferson’s home town.
Only in very recent years have most Americans even heard of “the Alt-Right.” It gained notoriety largely because self-proclaimed alt-right people like Steve Bannon and Steve Miller came into the Trump Administration at its inception. Mr. Bannon had been the head of Breitbart News, a primary source for Alt-Right propaganda. He became the President’s chief political advisor. The Alt-Right had existed for several years, but they never made big news until isolated members of the new administration drew the spotlight to their racist and ultra-nationalist activities.
Alt-Right enthusiasts knew that Donald Trump was probably going to be the sole presidential candidate, let along President, they were going to support for the foreseeable future. Therefore they shall stick with the President no matter what evolves in upcoming months.
One person, all by himself, is potentially re-creating the same kinds of circumstances which led to the violence and turbulence in Germany during the 1930s and in America during the 1960s. And why is Donald Trump doing this? Because he can. Because he is thrilled to stir controversy. As he told an important gathering of Republican legislators in the first days of his presidency, he is not interested in policy, because “I am putting on a show.” Most of all, he is doing what he inconsistently consistently does to solidify an important segment of his hard-core base. Whatever else he may be, Donald J. Trump is a genius at recognizing the truest of true believers in his beloved base, and they are the Alt-Right.
At most there are tens of thousands of members in alt-right groups. But there are far more hundreds of thousands or in the low millions of potential Alt-Right white-supremacist sympathizers in the South, North, East, and West. Many of them shall be rallying to the cause in the weeks following the widespread publicity regarding Charlottesville. All of them will stick with their Main Man to the final Gotterdammerung, come hell or high water, both of which seem to be in increasing evidence.
The Disestablished Middle Class Unemployed
Middle-income middle class blue-and-white-collar workers used to be part of the political establishment in the Democratic Party. For at least the past ten years, many of these people have been losing their jobs. As that has been happening, they have concluded that far too few people in the Democratic establishment have sensed the profound discouragement of this large bloc of voters. They feel totally disaffected from the party they have supported for generations.
During the 2016 Republican presidential primaries, and in the presidential campaign itself, the unemployed or underemployed former middle class finally discovered a candidate whom they believed understood their plight and who spoke their language. “Make America Great Again” meant this to The Disaffected Middle Class Unemployed: “WE are going to become great again! We are going to see the foreigners who have been taking our jobs driven out of the country!” Donald Trump never clearly explained exactly how any of that would occur, other than frequently to reiterate that he was going to bring millions of jobs back to America. But he lifted their spirits, which were in desperate need of a major uplift, and they have never stopped thinking for a moment that he would follow through on his promise.
There are many factors that explain the loss of so many American jobs. They need not be enumerated here; they have been noted in many other places by many other writers. This job-loss is extremely complicated, and for it there is no easy or quick solution. But that particular group of former middle-class and now lower-class people who voted for Donald Trump are totally convinced he will bring back their employment at the same or at a higher level of pay.
If everything he promised hasn’t happened yet, they are certain that failure is because of the Congress, not because of the President. They have no doubt he shall be their salvation.
These are the voters who carried Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and other swing states that were predicted even on Election Day to go to Mrs. Clinton. Depending on what transpires in the next several months or very few years, there could be even more such voters in 2020. Donald Trump knows how to cultivate his base. And the base are sticking with their man.
Reasonable Republicans
Possibly the largest of the five groups in the Trump Base are the legion of Reasonable Republicans who have voted the straight Republican ticket in every election for decades. These are mainly middle and upper class business-oriented men and women who believe in the traditional Republican tenets: lower taxes, especially corporate taxes, less government spending, less government, less regulation, and a concerted effort to work toward a balanced budget.
Some of the Reasonable Republicans were as personally repulsed by Hillary Clinton as everyone else in the Trump Base, but most of them were not so visceral in their opposition. Instead, they are traditionalists in their party loyalty. Their occupations, social status, and cultural positions naturally direct them toward the Republican Party.
However, because of the obvious renegade streak within Donald Trump that emerged in the presidential primary elections, and because of his maverick 2016 campaign, Reasonable Republicans did not vote for Mr. Trump with overwhelming confidence or enthusiasm. They were nervous about whether he was truly a Republican at all, and with good reason. But he was the Republican candidate, and so they voted for him. Almost no one in the Reasonable Republican category voted for Mrs. Clinton, because she seemed to be the antithesis of everything the Republican Party has always stood for, regardless of whatever deep reservations they feared might be lurking within the unpredictable and troubled mind of Donald Trump.
Any Republican voters whose thinking is essentially reasonable must surely have become shaken by the avalanche of presidential goofs and gaffes. To ignore the obvious chaos is an impossibility for reasonable people. By now it is evident this is not simply the behavior of a man who was never in politics before and is experiencing difficulty getting the hang of his office. This is the normal behavior of a lifetime in a man who is completely incapable of normal behavior. No matter who is attempting to advise and guide him, the President is not going to improve. He will only get worse, as we witness every passing day.
How are Reasonable Republicans dealing with this calamity? How will they deal with it in the future? What are they saying to one another in quiet, honest conversations? Have they chosen deliberately to go mute? Or will they begin to speak out?
Every week Reasonable Republicans in Congress speak out against the disruptive actions of a man who seems bent on completely overturning American government as it has always been conducted. Are those voices in Congress being heard by the Reasonable Republicans in the electorate? How long will this group stand by their man? And how long will powerful Republicans refuse to demand the President’s resignation?
If the Hard-Core Trump Base is to shrink, it will happen because Reasonable Republicans will have decided that enough is enough. So many CEOs on the President’s two big business advisory councils resigned after Charlottesville that he decided to disband the councils altogether. Republicans need to insist that other Republicans in positions of great influence must force the President to resign. However, there is no assurance that will occur anytime soon, if at all. And that causes further alarm.
People Who Are Unwilling to Admit They Were Wrong
In all four of the previously-noted categories of the Trump Hard-Core are people who are still unwilling to admit that they made a mistake when they voted for Donald Trump on Nov. 8, 2016. It is alarmingly evident to millions of Americans who didn’t vote for Candidate Trump, or who never were in the Hard-Core, or who are among the small number who have left it, that Mr. Trump represents a clear and present danger to the viability of American democracy. What mystifies many Americans is why everyone who voted for Donald Trump does not realize how dangerous a man he has become.
Polls show that the President’s approval poll numbers keep falling. That should not surprise anyone. But they are still appallingly high, considering how disastrously his presidency has evolved. Probably most of those who previously supported Mr. Trump did so because they opposed Mrs. Clinton so strongly. By now a small percentage of those folks may have concluded that even she would be better than he.
The American people need to understand that Donald Trump is not merely behaving like no other President before him. Almost everyone does acknowledge that. But the great majority of people in his very firm political base are still supporting him. With the exception of the people who identify strongly with the alternative right, these are normal American voters. Nevertheless, they refuse to recognize how autocratically our President is acting. They still think that fundamentally he is correct in what he is doing.
Within half a year of his taking office, it is agonizingly evident that Donald Trump has a dangerously flawed personality. Anyone who refuses to see that gives the word “stubborn” an entirely new meaning.
Here is the question that will require an answer in the next six months or year or two: How many in the Hard-Core Trump Base will admit that, on the basis of overwhelming and growing evidence, they were wrong? The American republic is in increasing jeopardy the longer President Trump remains in office. Without question, he shall remain in office as long as the Hard-Core maintains its undiminished zeal. Unless large numbers of the Trump Base defect, we are guaranteed to have a turbulent political future.
The first four categories of the Hard-Core Trump Base are the Ideological Republicans, the Alt-Right, the Disestablished Middle Class, and the Reasonable Republicans. Together, a majority of them shall probably never admit they were wrong to have voted for a man who single-handedly is dismantling America and the American position in the world.
Is the United States of America in the Twenty-Teens at all like Nazi Germany in the Nineteen-Thirties? In 2016 Donald Trump assumed the presidency, even though he had three million fewer votes than Hillary Clinton. In 1932 Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) Party won 230 seats in the German parliament (the Reichstag), even though Hitler was well short of a parliamentary majority. Instantaneously upon Mr. Trump’s election, because of an unfortunate peculiarity in the American Constitution, he assumed power. Within almost no time after Hitler was elected, he assumed total power in the Reichstag.
Is it too early to draw parallels between Trump’s America and Hitler’s Germany? If this is too early, then when might it be too late? How many people in the Trump Hard-Core are required to admit they were wrong before he does even more damage? And will enough Hard-Core Trump supporters ever admit they were wrong?
The considerable majority of Americans who are opposed to Donald Trump must not delude themselves into thinking that the ship of state shall right itself soon, or that is shall naturally right itself as time goes on, or that it will necessarily even be righted at all. Stabilization will not happen until the President is forced to resign. A strong and vocal majority of us need courageously to confront this very ominous political forecast.
Furthermore, it is quite possible the Hard-Core Trump Base numbers shall increase as time goes on, rather than decrease. That is what happened in Germany throughout the rest of the 1930s. In all likelihood, the Trump Hard-Core may not decrease at all, because so many new Alt-Rightists will come into it.
The greatest hope lies with Reasonable Republicans. Donald Trump is destroying the Republican Party. Republicans must own up to that alarming reality.
What will happen? Of greater consequence, when will it happen, whatever “it” is?
John Miller is a writer, author, lecturer, and preacher-for-over-fifty-years who is pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC.