Trump’s Rival Republican Officials Struggle to ‘Move’ Against ‘Cultish Devotion’ of His Supporters
Former president Donald Trump's rival Republican candidates' campaigns are finding it difficult to penetrate his supporter base.
Republicans who opposed Trump were unable to capitalize on his mistakes because his followers had already come up with ridiculous justifications for his inability to fulfill promises that he declared were his top priorities, per Raw Story. One of these promises was the Mexico border.
A Republican operative for a competing campaign told The Washington Post about the findings of a focus group in which supporters of Trump faced off with Trump's inability to build the wall, only to have one woman assert that "Trump intentionally didn't finish the barrier so that migrants would bottleneck in the gaps and be easy to detain there."
The GOP consultant for the focus group was frustrated by Trump's cultish following. “How do you engage with that level of creativity in finding a way to excuse Trump?” they told the Post. “Nothing could move them.”
This expert was not the first one to discover that Trump fans have "Iron Dome" missile shields a la Israel to block unfavorable news about their candidate of choice. As a testament to Trump's increasing lead in the primary, sources familiar with the overtures say that the anti-tax Club for Growth, which was originally determined to keep Trump from winning the nomination, has reached out to Trump advisors in an attempt to reach a détente. In the fall, the organization decided to give up on trying to stop him.
Advertisers collaborating with the Club for Growth, a prominent non-partisan political donor, experimented with several strategies that yielded minimal to no impact on matters ranging from the pandemic to firearms. Even focus group participants who expressed concern about the growing national debt were unmoved by accusations that Trump was a major factor in the deficit.
According to a person familiar with the situation, by March, Tom Schultz, the Club's lead campaigner, said that they hadn't discovered anything that worked and they weren't going to. “The more they seem not to want him tells me there’s a good reason for me to want him,” a 77-year-old Iowan Trump supporter said when interviewed outside a rally by Trump. “I think they’re just trying to discourage people like myself: ‘Oh, you can’t win.’”
“This cycle has been unique in that support for candidates that drop out has mostly all gone to Trump. He appears to be consolidating en route to a romp in the early contests,” said Scott Reed, who was closely associated with Mike Pence's now-closed presidential campaign. “The other candidates have failed to make their case well, while Trump continues to entertain and push hot-button items that motivate the base. And the voters appear to be giving him the benefit of the doubt about his policy changes and departures from conservatism to transactional populism.”
