Sooner or Later, Unqualified Support Crumbles

The Millerites had their Great Disappointment (a Wikipedia article (Wikipedia: “William Miller (preacher)”: The Great Disappointment) quotes Hiram Edson: “Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before… We wept and wept, till the day dawn.”)—they were disappointed that the world did not end at the prophesied time. The Dutch saw the end of tulip mania (Wikipedia: “Tulip mania”). The concept is straightforward: unfounded and unhedged beliefs typically lead to ruin. While faith may occasionally be virtuous, science usually is. And bad policy is nothing but faith. Whether it’s trade wars or immigration demagoguery, environmental negligence or the sort of banal tyranny of receiving trademarks and loans for policy treats, bad policy has consequences that tend to awaken even the most willing of fools. Foremost, in economy predicated on debt, the failure to repay due to sudden and unexpected difficulties—labor shortages, or supply changes due to trade wars—can easily cascade. But there is social stress, too. The fraying of social relations due to the toady buttressing the bum in charge can lead to the fraying of business relations and contacts. Shifts in communication foreshadow shifts in commerce.

The current regime of Republican control has been setting off fires all about the world, and they have not done so with patience and care. They do not know where the powder kegs are, they did not plan for the retorts and counterplays. And there are always the other wildcards dealt to hands unseen and waiting to come forth. While blind support seems unshakable, that’s a ceteris paribus reality, where real things tend to shift about in shipping. Those who repeat that Trump gets away with things seem to buy into him with a faith dissimilar to his supporters only in their disliking of his behavior. To put it another way, until the hand is played out, nobody collects any winnings. The fact that the support is blind is all the more reason to suspect it will fade in a flash. The supporters are not attached to any specific policy. They don’t have objects or outcomes in mind. They are simply along for the ride, up to the point where they see the wagon heading toward a ravine. Then they will eject. Toward the end of George W. Bush’s time in office, even among Republicans his approval fell as low as the upper 50s. The lowest Trump’s seen from them is the upper 70s. That’s why the midterms matter so much. They set a milestone down in the wake of time, and when the supporters evaluate the two years from the election, they will start to realize we’ve little to show for it.

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