Is Trump going away soon?
There is talk in the media about whether US President Donald Trump’s supporters will continue to side with him after the recent assault on the US Capitol by mobs of his most ardent (okay, “worst”) allies.
That Trump urged these people on his now defunct Twitter account has led to charges of insurgency against the US government, and might end his presidency on a very humble note.
Scores of his former supporters have walked out of the government, and I have seen not just a few ordinary US citizens who voted for him in 2016 now denounce him.
Even the likes of senior US Cabinet members and a few US lawmakers have spoken out against Trump for his at best histrionics, and worse, revolutionary dissent.
And so, people are asking: Now that Trump’s time is over, will virtually all of his followers desert him? I have news for concerned US citizens considering this: No, this will not be happening soon.
I have witnessed such political leanings and outward agnosticism and attacks on the government since I was a child in the US. My own brother was one such objector.
I can firmly say that these people are not going to change, such discord and disunity is in their blood.
So make no mistake: Trump is not disappearing. We will soon see his book outlining his outrageous heterodoxy, and it will be a bestseller among his adherents.
And in any case, if it is not to be Trump, there are plenty of others lined up behind him (read: Mike Pompeo, Mike Pence, Ted Cruz, Kelly Loeffler, Josh Hawley, etc). These people may not fit one important point of what Trump supporters are — lacking a college education — but they happily meet the other qualifications: They have proven racist, angry and at times voiceless, and are bent on waging conflict against the system and the government.
Yes, there are many, literally millions, of this kind of people in the US. I have seen, known and met them — they are not going away any time soon, whatever happens to Trump.
Watch out for 2024, folks, a man who just got 70 million popular votes is not going away any time soon.
David Pendery
Taipei
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