4 ms·

I hope you're right. The obituaries for Trump's popularity have been predicted so many times that it's hard to be confident that "This Time It's Different."

gfodor 6y ago
For what it’s worth, I’ve only seen the odds of this go to non-zero once: it was the case two days or so ago. It’s back to zero in my mind now that Twitter banned him and martyred him. I think he probably is actually now a permanent fixture in our lives, afraid to say.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  As a counter-anecdote, I was pretty sure that the Access Hollywood tape would lead to Trump being dropped by Republicans. Instead, bragging about sexual assault somehow became "locker room talk" and the story had little impact. Since then, for each new story, I've been waiting to see whether there is a corresponding drop in his popularity among Republicans before ever concluding that there is a moral line that won't be justified.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    To be clear, the reason for this and why it was different wasn’t because of the capitol attack alone. It was also because he appeared to capitulate and abandon the people who did it and supported it. That group took it as a sign he wasn’t the leader they thought he was and betrayed them. Now that he has been martyred and has re-rebelled against the tech companies, threatening to create a new platform, that is over.
- SomeCallMeTim 6y ago
  Maybe? It's hardly martyring to be kicked off of Twitter IMO, but even if his fans see it that way -- Trumps fans seem to predominantly posses a very short attention span. It's the only way that many of Trumps reversals make sense. They can be cheering him for saying A and then cheering him five minutes later for saying ~A. I suspect that if Trump loses his platform for some number of months, the shine may wear off. And Parler is being kicked from AWS, so their entire service is going down too--and they may get the full treatment of being kicked from other servers and payment services if they don't agree to police their content. And without easy access to his marks, it will be harder for Don the Con to stay relevant. Not predicting that it will happen. I'm not that optimistic, TBH. But positing a mechanism that it could happen.
- secabeen 6y ago
  > I think he probably is actually now a permanent fixture in our lives, afraid to say. Life has a 100% mortality rate. His presence is our lives is inherently temporary. And for a morbidly obese man, it could happen suddenly, or take 20 years. We just don't know.

gfodor 6y ago

For what it’s worth, I’ve only seen the odds of this go to non-zero once: it was the case two days or so ago. It’s back to zero in my mind now that Twitter banned him and martyred him. I think he probably is actually now a permanent fixture in our lives, afraid to say.

MereInterest 6y ago
As a counter-anecdote, I was pretty sure that the Access Hollywood tape would lead to Trump being dropped by Republicans. Instead, bragging about sexual assault somehow became "locker room talk" and the story had little impact. Since then, for each new story, I've been waiting to see whether there is a corresponding drop in his popularity among Republicans before ever concluding that there is a moral line that won't be justified.
- gfodor 6y ago
  To be clear, the reason for this and why it was different wasn’t because of the capitol attack alone. It was also because he appeared to capitulate and abandon the people who did it and supported it. That group took it as a sign he wasn’t the leader they thought he was and betrayed them. Now that he has been martyred and has re-rebelled against the tech companies, threatening to create a new platform, that is over.
SomeCallMeTim 6y ago
Maybe? It's hardly martyring to be kicked off of Twitter IMO, but even if his fans see it that way -- Trumps fans seem to predominantly posses a very short attention span. It's the only way that many of Trumps reversals make sense. They can be cheering him for saying A and then cheering him five minutes later for saying ~A. I suspect that if Trump loses his platform for some number of months, the shine may wear off. And Parler is being kicked from AWS, so their entire service is going down too--and they may get the full treatment of being kicked from other servers and payment services if they don't agree to police their content. And without easy access to his marks, it will be harder for Don the Con to stay relevant. Not predicting that it will happen. I'm not that optimistic, TBH. But positing a mechanism that it could happen.
secabeen 6y ago
> I think he probably is actually now a permanent fixture in our lives, afraid to say. Life has a 100% mortality rate. His presence is our lives is inherently temporary. And for a morbidly obese man, it could happen suddenly, or take 20 years. We just don't know.