The facts show that Trump’s support is beginning to erode in multiple meaningful ways. The ground is literally giving way beneath his feet, even if he and a goodly chunk of the punditerati don’t know it yet.
What is more, it is a phenomenon that is only likely to accelerate.
To those who say Trump’s base is being energized by his arrest for endangering U.S. national security, you wouldn’t know it from the sparse MAGA crowd assembled outside the Miami courthouse where Trump was arraigned on Tuesday. Despite manifold efforts by the Trump messaging operation to gin up a Jan. 6-type crowd of flag-waving loonies, the actual turnout was unimpressive. There were almost certainly more media and police in the crowd of a couple hundred than there were pro-Trump protestors.
This is not the first time Trump’s power to draw a crowd has failed him. He got a similarly anemic turnout at the time of his arraignment in New York for the charges brought by New York City district attorney Alvin Bragg against the former president in the Stormy Daniels hush money case. Trump rallies have also produced disappointing results over the course of the past year or two. Of course, to hear Team Trump tell it, it’s all part of the plan, a desire for “more intimate” interactions with voters. Hooey.
After a couple of years, the plummeting turnouts have to be seen as a trend. The sad sack old coyote is losing it.