Trump protects his flawed, self serving, world view regardless of evidence, by nasty means. And bears do shit in the woods.
It's happened so often it doesn't surprise me. Bringing out Fake Media and the Deep State in the middle of the worst national and international crisis for a very long time is, sadly, par for the course. He's a very unpleasant apology for a human being.
I heard some of that news conference. It was bad. However, I do disagree with the Guardian's comment that T had an "extraordinary temper tantrum". I don't think it's extraordinary, given his track record, and possibly not even his worst.
Dear God. It's not clear to me whether T is behind this, or Director Jody Olsen. I did a page search, and "trump" isn't there. But, of course, T and/or his henchfolk may be involved behind the scene.
And the volunteers aren't even eligible for unemployment, when they get back to the US. AND, once the Peace Corps gets resurrected, the current volunteers will have to reapply.
President Kennedy must be spinning in his grave. (IIRC, he created the Peace Corps.) Perhaps he could pay a little visit to T and co. in the middle of the night...
Apparently produced by Madonna, this short video is a hoot, and I might need one after watching. The statements about the virus made by Don Trump with calender dates popping up. Illustrates nicely the unstable nonsense from the stable genius. https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1240675245943656448?s=20
Trump has apparently decided to get serious and has broken out . . . the CAPSLOCK!!!
Donald J. Trump
WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!
22 March 2020
That will teach the virus who's boss!
For context, and using the metric by which Trump himself measures the success of his presidency*, on January 20, 2017 the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 19,824.25 points. At the close of trading on Friday (March 20, 2020) the Dow was at 19,173.98, and that doesn't even take three years of inflation into account. In other words the supposed prosperity Trump brought to the country (or, more accurately, to the country's already wealthy investing class) just swirled down the drain like so much soapy water.
For context, and using the metric by which Trump himself measures the success of his presidency*, on January 20, 2017 the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 19,824.25 points. At the close of trading on Friday (March 20, 2020) the Dow was at 19,173.98, and that doesn't even take three years of inflation into account. In other words the supposed prosperity Trump brought to the country (or, more accurately, to the country's already wealthy investing class) just swirled down the drain like so much soapy water.
Did you type something wrong? Those two numbers are less than $700 apart. Out of $19k that's hardly a plummet.
The plummet was from the peak at 29,551.42 at the close on February 12, 2020 - I think the point is that, even by his own dubious reckoning, Trump has left the economy worse off now than when he started.
For context, and using the metric by which Trump himself measures the success of his presidency*, on January 20, 2017 the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 19,824.25 points. At the close of trading on Friday (March 20, 2020) the Dow was at 19,173.98, and that doesn't even take three years of inflation into account. In other words the supposed prosperity Trump brought to the country (or, more accurately, to the country's already wealthy investing class) just swirled down the drain like so much soapy water.
Did you type something wrong? Those two numbers are less than $700 apart. Out of $19k that's hardly a plummet.
Over a period of slightly more than three years the DJIA is expected to rise unless the U.S. is in a recession. For comparison the Dow closed at 16,064.77 on November 22, 2013. January 20, 2017 is exactly halfway between November 22, 2013 and March 20, 2020, so that represents an equal span of time, so during the last bit of the Obama years (a somewhat anemic recovery) the Dow rose by 3,759.48 points, compared with a fall of 650.27 points over the same amount of time in the Trump administration*. Now equating the stock market with the economy is a fallacy, but it's a fallacy Trump has decided to live by so the analysis is fair.
On another, related subject, can someone explain to Trump that certain phrases should be avoided under current circumstances?
Josh Dawsey
"People are dying to go out to a restaurant. People are dying to go on an airplane," Trump says, calling it a "pent up" demand.
22 March 2020
While literally true, this is probably not the message Trump intended to send.
WHO has publicly warned that the US may become the next epicenter, possibly because of what Trump has been saying. I mean the timing of the warning, not that Trump is responsible.
I caught the last part of today's daily briefing. It seemed Trump was more subdued. He read straight from the text with little adlibbing. Yesterday, Dr. Fauci was nowhere to be seen. Today he was directly behind 45 and spoke for a while.
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
Sadly, there is evidence that listening to Trump can kill you.
Trump shouldn't be giving informal medical advice over the air, for sure. However, from what I've seen of his comments, I don't think they could be reasonably interpeted as meaning "Go find a bottle of anything labelled 'chloroquine' and drink it."
Even if it had been the FDA formally approving chloroquine for COVID-19, this couple would probably still be stupid enough to think that that includes the stuff you use to clean your fish-tank.
However, from what I've seen of his comments, I don't think they could be reasonably interpeted as meaning "Go find a bottle of anything labelled 'chloroquine' and drink it."
No, a reasonable person would not. But Trump supporters long ago threw reason out the window when listening to Trump. The widow clearly didn't bother to use reason to parse what Trump was saying
"We saw his press conference. It was on a lot, actually," she said. "Trump kept saying it was basically pretty much a cure."
"We were afraid of getting sick," she told NBC.
We know that Trump did not actually say that. But he engaged in his standard puffery and boasting and lying and, obviously, created the impression that it was a cure--even though, technically, he never said that.
And, of course, reasonable people wouldn't even bother responding to a sham poll that only gives "Very Good" "Great" and "Superb" as a description of Trump's handling of the crisis. And yet, as we see, Trump supporters think that shows how great and wonderful he is. "Reason" is simply not in the building when Trump is the subject.
It's the cult aspect of Trump support. I have no idea what the attraction is, nor why they can't see him for the narcissist freak he obviously is. Loyalty is a strange thing when it comes to cults. He clearly meets some needs. The question "what do you see in him?" seems a better starting point than trying to reason.
It's the cult aspect of Trump support. I have no idea what the attraction is, nor why they can't see him for the narcissist freak he obviously is. Loyalty is a strange thing when it comes to cults. He clearly meets some needs. The question "what do you see in him?" seems a better starting point than trying to reason.
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
answer this question;
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
Is this a common viewpoint? It's hard to know. The US is so geographically large, but also in spots so sparsely populated, gauging the "depth" to which a viewpoint has penetrated in various communities isn't so easy. Do bear in mind that Trump's political support among the general populace has pretty much remained below 50% He was elected (to the extent that ordinary voters actually do any "electing" -- remember, we have that dratted electoral college) by a minority of the populace.
I live in an area where Trump supporters are a decided minority--but 15 minutes by car in any direction would take me to a community full of MAGA-hat-wearing supporters. I blame it on our crumbling education system.
It's the cult aspect of Trump support. I have no idea what the attraction is, nor why they can't see him for the narcissist freak he obviously is. Loyalty is a strange thing when it comes to cults. He clearly meets some needs. The question "what do you see in him?" seems a better starting point than trying to reason.
He's pure Id.
That's pretty good. Pre-social and pre-moral. Lord knows how so many people are either so arrested or regressed.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
It's the cult aspect of Trump support. I have no idea what the attraction is, nor why they can't see him for the narcissist freak he obviously is. Loyalty is a strange thing when it comes to cults. He clearly meets some needs. The question "what do you see in him?" seems a better starting point than trying to reason.
Trump's appeal is very basic. He tells his followers that they're great and that all their problems are caused by a conspiracy of evil people: the opposition party, the lying press, foreigners, non-whites, the Jews "international financiers" like George Soros who just happen to be Jewish. Trump promises to turn back the clock and "make America great again" like it was when women knew their place and the coloreds weren't so uppity.
Next time your Nazis come they'll have a new disguise
They won’t be wearing jackboots but three-piece suits and ties
They’ll tell you things you'll love to hear, you’ll never know they’re lies
As for how widespread that viewpoint is, Trump was fairly unpopular by the standards of a president with a good economy. That will probably drop now that the U.S. economy looks like it's crashing. My guess is that there's a fanatical base of support somewhere in the vicinity of 27% of the adult population.
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
I think Trump supporters will support him no matter what happens. It's not about the man, it's about whatever drew them to him in the first place. (I won't speculate on that here because I'm really biased.) They will not even connect deaths due to his handling of the pandemic to him.
Remember that those polls are self-selecting. Water seeks its own level, and in the US we tend to congregate around other people with similar beliefs. For example, my Facebook feed is mostly sci-fi memes.
I have been reading Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America by Christopher Leonard. The last couple of chapters talk about how Charles and David Koch have had a heavy impact on American politics, especially in the last few years. Basically they built a web of interest groups who play into basic fears Americans have long harbored. In so doing, they set the stage for the monster they have unleashed--though it appears they really look down on the man. They just see him as a stooge they can manipulate.
Obviously, the referenced "poll" is bogus if there are only three options one can select. It feeds into Trump's narcissism. It does not really reflect what is out there.
But, if you ask me, Trump basically won because of racism. In so many ways we are still fighting the Civil War. Whites fear losing control of "their" country. Each generation since the Baby Boom has gotten more and more brown. I can remember I had a friend who was Japanese American. My parents would welcome her in the home, but they would tell me that they did not want to see me marry her. We broke up over other differences, though. My daughter married a Filipino with our blessing. Their daughter is now 16 and dating herself and she has had boyfriends of all different colors and ethnicities. Their only concern is that she avoids someone who may be abusive to her.
Then too, there is strong, fundamentalist religious beliefs. People still doubt the scientific explanation of evolution--which translates to doubts about global warming. I use the term "global warming" because it can be shown how conservatives have sought to change the conversation by insisting on "climate change." (Time to call a spade a spade, here).
Also, throw in feelings about reproductive rights (ie abortion) and same-sex marriage and transgender issues.
For many people, the world has changed too damn fast.
The other day, I went on a photoshoot in a couple of outlying communities. I went to one community where it seemed like every other house had a confederate battle flag was hanging from the porch. There is a great divide here in America.
What I am seeing now is a build-up of cognitive dissonance in America. Americans want to believe that their president is doing what is right through this coronavirus outbreak, but I think it will come crashing in when they begin to see videos of military vehicles transporting bodies to open-pit graves much like what we have seen in Italy and Iran.
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
At 81 with a lot of friends over 65 I can say no not a common viewpoint at least in my circle. I do have two friends who are all for anything Trump, but they are not the majority. One even just returned from vacation and is upset because county told her she had to stay home for several weeks because she returned from out of the area. ( we have no cases of the virus in our county so far ) She was in Hawaii and very upset when they closed the pool at the hotel.
Biden said “Think about the science — not the science of Wall Street, the science of medicine.”
Exactly right.
This is not about money, it’s about people.
Quite. Trump isn't wrong that an economic slowdown will kill some people - it will. But his prejudices make him wrong on the relative number of deaths from an economic pause vs an uncontrolled coronavirus epidemic.
It's also worth mentioning that if we have an uncontrolled epidemic and a significant fraction of the population are bedridden, that will itself cause an economic slowdown.
Another difference is that there is a highly effective treatment - a degree of redistribution - to prevent an economic slowdown from killing people. If people in relatively rich countries die from economic circumstances, it is an ideological choice, not a natural disaster.
Countries also have choices about international aid and non-oppressive trade.
Shouldn’t arguments about economy-related deaths be re-examined from the perspective that individual and national economic circumstances are both modifiable through government interventions?
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
The people I stayed with for a year as an exchange student are both in their mid-80's now. I visited them in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in early 2016. They were supporters of Carson until he dropped, and then jumped on the Trump train. Grace is a massive Trump cheerleader on social media, so much so that I thought it prudent to move my political commentary to a separate facebook account. Grace has become quite religious in her retirement. She was always anti-abortion, fanatically and evangelically so, so she would never vote for Clinton or any Democrat.
John uses baseball is his social media, and is quite unwell. The old ticker is his problem. He is very conservative, a life-long soldier who rose through the ranks from enlisted in the 50's to retired general in the 90's. He grew up Irish in Brooklyn in a bad situation. He and I spent about an hour calmly discussing Trump v Clinton in 2016, before agreeing not to talk about it again. He didn't care that Trump was a liar, because all politicians are liars. He didn't care that Trump went bust, because he came back and was successful. He felt that Trump was successful at making money and that he would use those skills to help the USA. He shrugged off Trump's corruption, and pointed to corruption in the Democratic party. He felt that Trump would be better for the military than Clinton, a key concern of his. He is rusted-on Republican and has been since the 1980's.
You might be able to discern from the above threads of the excuses I make for Grace and John in my mind. But the fact remains that in their region and their social circles, they are super-spreaders of the Trump 2020 virus.
I have a question for American Shipmates. One of my Facebook friends is my father's elderly American cousin. I've not met her, and neither has my father, but we have met mutual family members. She seems like a nice woman.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
Um.
I'm going to say "no," as it's clear that Trump lost the popular vote, his approval ratings across all Americans have always tanked, and the one thing he had going for him--the economy, which was no credit of his!--has now tanked.
Unfortunately....
IMHO the real divide between Trumpistas and the rest of us has to do with whether they read. Whether they watch anything but Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Whether they know anybody outside their tiny neighborhood bubble. Whether they live in a hermetically sealed world (and for those who do, God help them as coronavirus comes crashing through, because that's going to be an existential shock worse than the one the rest of us are enduring).
This isn't really age-related IMHO, although it is probably a bit easier for older people to get mentally / socially isolated. They are retired, they tend to live in pockets, and they usually don't have children at home to force gthem into contact with the larger (mixed) community. So if you want to lie to yourself, it's easier.
And then there's the usual psych reaction of doubling down. Your worldview is threatened? Either do the hard work of investigating and figuring out the truth, or take the easy way out. Double down. Triple down. And push all your angst on to a handy-dandy villain, whether that be "the Libs," brown people, immigrants, scientists, you name it.
What we need IMHO is a rent-a-villain service. If we had a bureau where you could order up a fully-equipped cartoon villain to blame all our personal problems on, maybe we'd stop dumping them on the {fill in the blank.}
Some Fox News hosts, staff, etc. have gradually been changing, then erupting about T, or Fox News, or the corona virus, or whatever. Don't know if that will trigger big changes; but it might make enough cracks to let some breathable air into the FoxVerse and its inhabitants.
Comments
It's happened so often it doesn't surprise me. Bringing out Fake Media and the Deep State in the middle of the worst national and international crisis for a very long time is, sadly, par for the course. He's a very unpleasant apology for a human being.
oh yeah. That was meant to be a soft question allowing him to say something presidential to reassure Americans. I guess he missed that.
But why ? Surely a body of healthy committed volunteers could be really useful at a time like this, delivering food and medicine if nothing else.
I heard some of that news conference. It was bad. However, I do disagree with the Guardian's comment that T had an "extraordinary temper tantrum". I don't think it's extraordinary, given his track record, and possibly not even his worst.
Dear God. It's not clear to me whether T is behind this, or Director Jody Olsen. I did a page search, and "trump" isn't there. But, of course, T and/or his henchfolk may be involved behind the scene.
And the volunteers aren't even eligible for unemployment, when they get back to the US. AND, once the Peace Corps gets resurrected, the current volunteers will have to reapply.
President Kennedy must be spinning in his grave. (IIRC, he created the Peace Corps.) Perhaps he could pay a little visit to T and co. in the middle of the night...
How does he -- or Jody Whatsit -- have the legal authority to shut this program down?
The excuse is "out of the abundance of caution" we do not want to expose you to COVID-19, so we are shutting you down.
I understand the excuse. I'm wondering about legal authority.
https://twitter.com/Madonna/status/1240675245943656448?s=20
That will teach the virus who's boss!
For context, and using the metric by which Trump himself measures the success of his presidency*, on January 20, 2017 the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 19,824.25 points. At the close of trading on Friday (March 20, 2020) the Dow was at 19,173.98, and that doesn't even take three years of inflation into account. In other words the supposed prosperity Trump brought to the country (or, more accurately, to the country's already wealthy investing class) just swirled down the drain like so much soapy water.
For some reason I'm imagining the end of Trading Places.
Did you type something wrong? Those two numbers are less than $700 apart. Out of $19k that's hardly a plummet.
Over a period of slightly more than three years the DJIA is expected to rise unless the U.S. is in a recession. For comparison the Dow closed at 16,064.77 on November 22, 2013. January 20, 2017 is exactly halfway between November 22, 2013 and March 20, 2020, so that represents an equal span of time, so during the last bit of the Obama years (a somewhat anemic recovery) the Dow rose by 3,759.48 points, compared with a fall of 650.27 points over the same amount of time in the Trump administration*. Now equating the stock market with the economy is a fallacy, but it's a fallacy Trump has decided to live by so the analysis is fair.
On another, related subject, can someone explain to Trump that certain phrases should be avoided under current circumstances?
While literally true, this is probably not the message Trump intended to send.
A picture is worth so much. Some people have negative value.
She is pro-Trump, and this seems to be ramping up. She has posted a poll about Trump's handling of the Coronavirus, which gave three options "Very good" "Great" and "Superb" She had voted "superb" which was clearly the front runner in the poll.
Is this a common viewpoint in America? Age-wise she is high risk and her brother is extremely high risk, as he is in poor health.
Trump shouldn't be giving informal medical advice over the air, for sure. However, from what I've seen of his comments, I don't think they could be reasonably interpeted as meaning "Go find a bottle of anything labelled 'chloroquine' and drink it."
Even if it had been the FDA formally approving chloroquine for COVID-19, this couple would probably still be stupid enough to think that that includes the stuff you use to clean your fish-tank.
And, of course, reasonable people wouldn't even bother responding to a sham poll that only gives "Very Good" "Great" and "Superb" as a description of Trump's handling of the crisis. And yet, as we see, Trump supporters think that shows how great and wonderful he is. "Reason" is simply not in the building when Trump is the subject.
He's pure Id.
Is this a common viewpoint? It's hard to know. The US is so geographically large, but also in spots so sparsely populated, gauging the "depth" to which a viewpoint has penetrated in various communities isn't so easy. Do bear in mind that Trump's political support among the general populace has pretty much remained below 50% He was elected (to the extent that ordinary voters actually do any "electing" -- remember, we have that dratted electoral college) by a minority of the populace.
I live in an area where Trump supporters are a decided minority--but 15 minutes by car in any direction would take me to a community full of MAGA-hat-wearing supporters. I blame it on our crumbling education system.
That's pretty good. Pre-social and pre-moral. Lord knows how so many people are either so arrested or regressed.
Trump's appeal is very basic. He tells his followers that they're great and that all their problems are caused by a conspiracy of evil people: the opposition party, the lying press, foreigners, non-whites, the Jews "international financiers" like George Soros who just happen to be Jewish. Trump promises to turn back the clock and "make America great again" like it was when women knew their place and the coloreds weren't so uppity.
As for how widespread that viewpoint is, Trump was fairly unpopular by the standards of a president with a good economy. That will probably drop now that the U.S. economy looks like it's crashing. My guess is that there's a fanatical base of support somewhere in the vicinity of 27% of the adult population.
I think Trump supporters will support him no matter what happens. It's not about the man, it's about whatever drew them to him in the first place. (I won't speculate on that here because I'm really biased.) They will not even connect deaths due to his handling of the pandemic to him.
Remember that those polls are self-selecting. Water seeks its own level, and in the US we tend to congregate around other people with similar beliefs. For example, my Facebook feed is mostly sci-fi memes.
Obviously, the referenced "poll" is bogus if there are only three options one can select. It feeds into Trump's narcissism. It does not really reflect what is out there.
But, if you ask me, Trump basically won because of racism. In so many ways we are still fighting the Civil War. Whites fear losing control of "their" country. Each generation since the Baby Boom has gotten more and more brown. I can remember I had a friend who was Japanese American. My parents would welcome her in the home, but they would tell me that they did not want to see me marry her. We broke up over other differences, though. My daughter married a Filipino with our blessing. Their daughter is now 16 and dating herself and she has had boyfriends of all different colors and ethnicities. Their only concern is that she avoids someone who may be abusive to her.
Then too, there is strong, fundamentalist religious beliefs. People still doubt the scientific explanation of evolution--which translates to doubts about global warming. I use the term "global warming" because it can be shown how conservatives have sought to change the conversation by insisting on "climate change." (Time to call a spade a spade, here).
Also, throw in feelings about reproductive rights (ie abortion) and same-sex marriage and transgender issues.
For many people, the world has changed too damn fast.
The other day, I went on a photoshoot in a couple of outlying communities. I went to one community where it seemed like every other house had a confederate battle flag was hanging from the porch. There is a great divide here in America.
What I am seeing now is a build-up of cognitive dissonance in America. Americans want to believe that their president is doing what is right through this coronavirus outbreak, but I think it will come crashing in when they begin to see videos of military vehicles transporting bodies to open-pit graves much like what we have seen in Italy and Iran.
At 81 with a lot of friends over 65 I can say no not a common viewpoint at least in my circle. I do have two friends who are all for anything Trump, but they are not the majority. One even just returned from vacation and is upset because county told her she had to stay home for several weeks because she returned from out of the area. ( we have no cases of the virus in our county so far ) She was in Hawaii and very upset when they closed the pool at the hotel.
Exactly right.
This is not about money, it’s about people.
Quite. Trump isn't wrong that an economic slowdown will kill some people - it will. But his prejudices make him wrong on the relative number of deaths from an economic pause vs an uncontrolled coronavirus epidemic.
It's also worth mentioning that if we have an uncontrolled epidemic and a significant fraction of the population are bedridden, that will itself cause an economic slowdown.
Countries also have choices about international aid and non-oppressive trade.
Shouldn’t arguments about economy-related deaths be re-examined from the perspective that individual and national economic circumstances are both modifiable through government interventions?
The people I stayed with for a year as an exchange student are both in their mid-80's now. I visited them in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas in early 2016. They were supporters of Carson until he dropped, and then jumped on the Trump train. Grace is a massive Trump cheerleader on social media, so much so that I thought it prudent to move my political commentary to a separate facebook account. Grace has become quite religious in her retirement. She was always anti-abortion, fanatically and evangelically so, so she would never vote for Clinton or any Democrat.
John uses baseball is his social media, and is quite unwell. The old ticker is his problem. He is very conservative, a life-long soldier who rose through the ranks from enlisted in the 50's to retired general in the 90's. He grew up Irish in Brooklyn in a bad situation. He and I spent about an hour calmly discussing Trump v Clinton in 2016, before agreeing not to talk about it again. He didn't care that Trump was a liar, because all politicians are liars. He didn't care that Trump went bust, because he came back and was successful. He felt that Trump was successful at making money and that he would use those skills to help the USA. He shrugged off Trump's corruption, and pointed to corruption in the Democratic party. He felt that Trump would be better for the military than Clinton, a key concern of his. He is rusted-on Republican and has been since the 1980's.
You might be able to discern from the above threads of the excuses I make for Grace and John in my mind. But the fact remains that in their region and their social circles, they are super-spreaders of the Trump 2020 virus.
Um.
I'm going to say "no," as it's clear that Trump lost the popular vote, his approval ratings across all Americans have always tanked, and the one thing he had going for him--the economy, which was no credit of his!--has now tanked.
Unfortunately....
IMHO the real divide between Trumpistas and the rest of us has to do with whether they read. Whether they watch anything but Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Whether they know anybody outside their tiny neighborhood bubble. Whether they live in a hermetically sealed world (and for those who do, God help them as coronavirus comes crashing through, because that's going to be an existential shock worse than the one the rest of us are enduring).
This isn't really age-related IMHO, although it is probably a bit easier for older people to get mentally / socially isolated. They are retired, they tend to live in pockets, and they usually don't have children at home to force gthem into contact with the larger (mixed) community. So if you want to lie to yourself, it's easier.
And then there's the usual psych reaction of doubling down. Your worldview is threatened? Either do the hard work of investigating and figuring out the truth, or take the easy way out. Double down. Triple down. And push all your angst on to a handy-dandy villain, whether that be "the Libs," brown people, immigrants, scientists, you name it.
What we need IMHO is a rent-a-villain service. If we had a bureau where you could order up a fully-equipped cartoon villain to blame all our personal problems on, maybe we'd stop dumping them on the {fill in the blank.}
Some Fox News hosts, staff, etc. have gradually been changing, then erupting about T, or Fox News, or the corona virus, or whatever. Don't know if that will trigger big changes; but it might make enough cracks to let some breathable air into the FoxVerse and its inhabitants.