Trump’s Antics Show Contempt for His Own Voters

Jonathan Bernstein: “I’m hardly the first to say this, but one thing remains clear about Donald Trump as a politician: No one has more contempt for his supporters than the president himself and those around him.”

“Trump is currently taking his allies through a crash course in disdain for democracy. He’s inventing, repeating or embellishing entirely false accusations about fraud. He’s asking the courts to toss out hundreds of thousands of legal votes for basically no reason. He’s demanding that the election results be overturned altogether by Republican officials — judges in some cases, election administrators in others, or even state legislators in an extreme scenario. It could hardly be more unconstitutional and undemocratic. Oh, and it’s entirely impractical: Trump’s legal and political strategies have no realistic chance of working…”

“Trump and his allies are treating their own supporters as if they were the easiest marks in the world, willing to fall for whatever wild claims the president can come up with to keep their resentment boiling and their donations flowing. And while it’s true that some Democratic politicians have said nasty things over the years about rank-and-file Trump voters, none of them has ever reached that level of contempt.”