Let's wait and see if they're still unhappy about the bombing in one week. This is a pattern I've seen time and time again with his base, e.g. with January 6th - they start off unhappy & surprised until their media has started sharing theories and viewpoints that slowly move them towards accepting and supporting whatever happened.
I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't think I am.
I don't trust YouGov polls. A few years ago everyone of their polls on English Politics came out at 71% vs 29%, which means they were sampling the same people repeatedly.
Also his base are a different group of people from Republicans, they are often a subset of Republicans.
You can go on Twitter, Youtube or any comment section and they are all saying "MAGA is dead", "I didn't vote for this" or some sort of signalling they are against a war with Iran.
I'm willing to buy that YouGov is a low quality poll, but you can't be suggesting twitter and youtube comment sections as a better alternative. Half of those comments might not even be human.
It is pretty easy to spot botted accounts both on YouTube and Twitter. I generally try to judge the sentiment and the momentum.
I will admit I am a bit of a politico, I see myself as the equivalent of someone betting on horses or dogs.
Generally I do the following:
- It is pretty easy to spot botted accounts both on YouTube and Twitter. Especially on YouTube. You will typically get a lot of real sounding names and real looking avatars that almost say exactly the same thing, along with a fake conversation as replies. These bots aren't using advanced AI. They can be bought quite cheaply actually.
- I also talk to a lot of people both in left and right leaning Discord groups. The consensus to anyone that isn't a complete die-hard is "MAGA has jumped the shark".
- There are lower level commentators who represent maybe few tens of thousands of people. Some of these are political operative, some of these are grifters, others are genuine people that have moved towards nationalist politics over time. I've been around these spaces long enough to know the usernames, the characters and accounts of those that follow them.
I appreciate none of this is scientific. However, I will take that over a poll any-day of the week and has been more consistent IME than polling (which is well known to be skewed depending on who is doing it).
I've been not paying attention to any of it recently because quite honestly I've burned out on it and instead I am having a break from it.
This is literally the sort of response I was complaining about.
Trump's base have been consistently against wars in the middle-east and him being too close to Israel has been a consistent criticism of Trump from way back in 2016/2017. So his supporters have been consistent about this for almost a decade. So I don't think your assessment is correct at all.
It been almost a decade now since Trump has entered politics and there has been one thing that been consistent throughout this period. That is the inability for otherwise intelligent people to state the beliefs of Trump's supporters accurately.
But the pattern I've seen is that it doesn't matter whether his supporters have consistently been against something, because they'll change their opinion once Trump actually does that thing. They start off by levying some criticisms, but quickly change over the coming days.
We'll see soon enough who is right. My prediction is: in one week, there'll be broad support in his base for the bombing. I'm sure enough of it that I'd be willing to bet money on it, and I'll gladly come back here and admit that I was wrong should things not turn out how I expect them to.
I don't believe you. You went for the old "they are all brainwashed" routine, specifically after I complained about people doing that. Which tells me you have bought into partisan politics.
> But the pattern I've seen is that it doesn't matter whether his supporters have consistently been against something, because they'll change their opinion once Trump actually does that thing. They start off by levying some criticisms, but quickly change over the coming days.
No they haven't. They've consistently been against his supporting of the COVID Vaccine (to the point where Trump doesn't mention it anymore), Against wars in the middle-east.
The pro-Trump people were complaining about his bombing of the Syrian Airfield back in 2017. That was spun heavily by the media at the time.
You consistently keep claiming this to be a truism but it isn't true at all. This is wholly disingenuous or you don't know what you are talking about.
> We'll see soon enough who is right. My prediction is: in one week, there'll be broad support in his base for the bombing. I'm sure enough of it that I'd be willing to bet money on it, and I'll gladly come back here and admit that I was wrong should things not turn out how I expect them to.
Even if you were wrong, I suspect that you will point to some AstroTurf'd poll and declare victory.
> I don't believe you. You went for the old "they are all brainwashed" routine, specifically after I complained about people doing that. Which tells me you have bought into partisan politics.
I'm doing that "routine" because it's what I've been seeing time and time again over the last years. I keep seeing lines drawn in the sand, those lines being stepped over, and everybody suddenly just accepting it and calling everyone who still keeps to those lines "RINOs" until they fully disappear.
But if you can't extend this much good faith to me, we have nothing to discuss. Good day.
> I'm doing that "routine" because it's what I've been seeing time and time again over the last years. I keep seeing lines drawn in the sand, those lines being stepped over, and everybody suddenly just accepting it and calling everyone who still keeps to those lines "RINOs" until they fully disappear.
I have no idea what you are even referring to. I am specifically talking about anti-war sentiment from Trump's base (which is not the same as Republicans). It has been consistent over the last 9 years.
> But if you can't extend this much good faith to me, we have nothing to discuss. Good day.
You literally did the routine that I specifically complained about in my original comment. Why should I extend to you any good faith? I specifically said I was tired of it and didn't want to hear it.
I'd love to be wrong here, but I don't think I am.