1/ I hate to say this, but I think something people are really underestimating is how far Trump has driven many of his supporters into the deep end — and how little even him “graciously conceding” will calm down 10% or so of the country, even when he does concede (which he will)
2/ One of the first inklings of this was the debate with Kirsten Walker, when Trump clearly felt she was being fair and even complimented her, but his supporters thought she was overtly biased and totally unfair.
3/ It’s been very obvious in other places too, though. QAnon is an example that’s quite known to everyone — where Trump is no longer “driving” but his supporters are. They made the theory and goaded/pushed him into it, not the other way around.
4/ We’ve seen it with Fox News-Trump too. The network does little but lavish praise on him and excuse his maladies, especially the prime time lineup, which legitimately resembles state television some nights. But in a week like this, Fox journalists had more spotlight...
5/ And Fox viewers who are die hard Trump supporters are now abandoning the network for OAN and Newsmax because it’s not Trump-friendly enough. I can’t really emphasize how frightening and dangerous that is — that Fox isn’t nice enough to Trump for them — but it’s very bad.
6/ Now we’re here, and everyone is talking as if Trump coming out and giving a Trumpian concession speech, where he’ll read the teleprompter and then interject with musings that are the total opposite of what he’s been told to say, will somehow appease these supporters. It won’t.
7/ As far as I can tell — and I speak to and follow these Trump supporters, some are people I care dearly about — were have truly entered a different territory now. Trump losing or conceding isn’t going to create a reality for those supporters that the country has rejected him.
8/ It just means they’re not going to take their cues from Trump anymore — but instead all the Trump sycophants and Trump personalities that have grown huge followings during his presidency. I’m not sure where it goes from here, but I gotta say I don’t like it.
9/ I hope POTUS concedes soon and I hope he exceeds my expectations in how he does it. But when he does concede, I just hope people realize it is not going to satisfy all of his supporters like a light switch going out. I think it’s genuinely a runaway train now.
END/ I don’t really have a solution here besides engaging people and — as I’ve said this week — holding the line on the reality of how this election happened (legitimately). But I do think so much damage has been done, and it’s gonna take awhile to undo.
That’s Kristen Walker* not Kirsten Walker, of course, a woman whose name deserved to be spelled correctly. Just don’t want to break up this thread.
Welker.
Kristen Welker.
Goodnight.
Kristen Welker.
Goodnight.
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