Empathy is dead in American politics: If you show empathy for everybody in your audience, does each person only hear that you care about someone else? Trumpist governance in practice so far is turning out to be just Republican governance with (much) worse management, but does the appalling character of the man on top matter? What Trumpism has brought is a new sense of empowerment to the ugliest aspects of American politics. A lot of Trump voters only heard one thing: Build the wall. Top Democrats are wrong: Trump supporters were more motivated by racism than economic issues. Sarah Kliff ran a focus group with Trump voters — half said they support single-payer. Alexandra Petri on every story she has read about Trump supporters in the past week.
Trump’s base support begins to erode. Why is Trump flailing? Because Americans hate his agenda, and it’s based on lies.
