This is the end of an era. Can you feel it? The shift in the
air is thick. Trump signs are coming down from yards or being left up while
they slowly decay away into tatters. They aren’t being maintained or replaced. The Trump t-shirts are gone. The red hats have
been replaced by red Budweiser and green John Deere hats. People in my 77% Trump
voting red area are no longer willing or eager to engage in conversation about him
anymore. They tiptoe around the subject like it’s a pile of dog shit they might
step in. They don’t praise him, but they’re not at the point of condemning him…
yet.
You know how it is when you're talking
to a person and you spy a shred of spinach between their teeth or a pus-filled pimple
right on the tip of their nose? You look away, but your eyes keep straying back
and you can’t wait until the conversation ends and you can just walk away. You don’t
mention the spinach or the pimple, but you’re still all too aware of the proverbial
one-sided elephant in the room. Of course the elephant is invisible to the victim
of the spinach or the pimple, and that makes it all the more uncomfortable.
Trump doesn’t know it yet but we see the spinach that he isn’t aware of. We see
the giant pus-filled pimple on his nose.
He still thinks he’s beloved and
revered, not realizing that his base’s attention span is shrinking and his
repetitions and fear-mongering about immigrants and leftist and Antifa are failing
on ears that just don’t have the band-width for his meanderings anymore. His
supporters are too busy trying to juggle household budgets that include outrageous
and spiraling food prices, rising housing costs, and the very real threat of increasing
health care costs. They’re trying to keep that fifteen-year-old refrigerator that’s
on its last legs running, they’re trying to decide which one streaming service
to keep and how they can make their kids’ shoes last three months longer. They’re
worried about scraping up enough money for their kids’ school lunches, and if
they’re going to be able to pay the electric bill when the new data center is built
down the road. They’re worried about losing their farms due to tariffs and a disappearing
labor force that they’ve depended on. They’re worried about losing their teaching
jobs, administration jobs, or food service jobs at the local public school due
to the dismantlement of the Department of Education, and they’re worried that
their special needs child will no longer receive school services in the future.
They’re worried that the decrease of awards in Pell Grants might mean they’ll have
to pull their college kid out of school. They’re worried if the rural nursing
home is going to close down and what they will do with their ailing grandma if
that happens. They’re worried about how to pay for housing upkeep costs. They’re
worried that their old car won’t make it for another year, or if they’ll even be
able to buy the car parts when it breaks down.
Trump still spits fear but his supporters
are growing weary of it. His loud voice is becoming a whisper. Those in Trump’s
circle know it, but he’s still living in the MAGA fantasy cocooned and shielded
from it all. He’s losing his hold on the cult to real everyday impactful
problems he has caused. His base hasn’t
yet reached the point where they’ll turn on him, but that day is coming, if he lives
long enough. The glitter and the promises and the rhetoric are all fading away like
mist. Can you feel it?
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