The most obvious evidence for this assertion is in the polling. The numbers are stacked against him. It's going to be difficult, but not impossible, to suddenly start expanding on his 43% base of support at this late stage.
Of course events can change this dynamic. Attacks on our military in any number of hotspots around the world. Or continued rioting in America's city through the summer, making his "Law & Order" candidacy more appealing to some voters.
But I'm not here to do political analysis (or at least not much). What my "finger in the wind" is sensing is a certain frustrated discouragement among the president's usual defenders. For nearly 4 years now they have dutifully taken up the preferred talking-points of this administration in answer to whatever criticism showed up on their social-media feeds. This has meant that for 4 years they have had to back-and-fill in the face of the administration's repeated demonstrable lying, and it seems they're getting tired of it.
Again, it's only a hunch. But Josh Marchall at Talking Points Memo seems to have a similar gut response to the moment.
As I've said, living in history is about not knowing the future. We are in a very volatile, unpredictable, dangerous moment in the history of this administration and indeed the history of the country itself. The stunt in front of the White House on Monday is not wearing well. It has the feel of one of those gambits employed by an embattled strongman which does both too little and too much, exposes weakness while galvanizing opponents. In the brittle late 20th century states of Africa and Latin America these moments would rapidly force a decision to massacre demonstrators or start lining up a flight to the French Riviera or exile in Saudi.
This feels about right:
No comments:
Post a Comment