I mentioned this a bit earlier on Ari Melber’s show when we were talking about the high profile MAGA defections of Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan and others. I’ve seen various theories: It’s about the Iran War. It’s about AI Jesus. Yes, it’s about all those things, but as off ramps more than causes or drivers. Trump looks like the weak horse and no one wants to bet on or be associated with the weak horse.
It’s primal. It’s particularly powerful if your loyalty and the political currency you operate in is power. People can see that Trump is faltering, not just politically and electorally but organically. Even his blood curdling threats of genocide and civilizational destruction tell the same story. He makes wild threats and then negotiates against himself, extends deadlines in the face of intransigence. Bracket the wild remarks and you see a man who is weak and flailing. He has visibly lost the instinctive ability he once had to hoodwink or jujitsu bad situations somehow to his advantage. That has emboldened his enemies. Increasingly it has demoralized his supporters. In that climate new outrages that might have been sloughed off or inspired impassioned defenses start looking like potential off ramps.
