The 2020 election is now less than eight months away, and with each day of increasingly bad news regarding the coronavirus pandemic which has paralyzed the United States and the world, supporters of President Donald Trump are getting more and more worried that the health crisis and his response to it could wind up costing him reelection.
According to Politico, Trump’s supporters are “splintering” into two factions:
“On one side are those like Bill Mitchell, who dismiss it as nothing worse than the flu, and the drive to eradicate it as “climate change 2.0” — as in, a media-lefty mass hysteria. On the other side are pro-Trump fixtures like Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller, who had been sounding the alarms on the coronavirus since January, and are calling for harsher lockdowns and urging social distancing.”
Such a split in the Trump base is coming at a time when it appears Democrats are on the verge of nominating former Vice President Joe Biden to be the president’s general election opponent. The opposition to Trump is unifying at a time when his own party seems to be splitting, with infighting threatening to leave the MAGA coalition at each other’s throats.
The most dramatic example of this was seen last week on Fox News:
“One host, Tucker Carlson, delivered grave warnings about the coronavirus. He accused officials — who his conservative audience ‘probably voted for’ — of minimizing ‘what is clearly a very serious problem.’ Another host, Sean Hannity, called it ‘fear-mongering by the deep state.'”
Some in the Trump orbit are openly warning that a fracture of the president’s supporters is an existential threat to his long-term political survival, with Will Chamberlain, a pro-Trump commentator and the editor-in-chief of Human Events, remarking:
“That would be a massive vulnerability … if he started downplaying the disease again, and it were to get worse.”
The virus is also threatening Trump’s one strong selling point for a second term: The economy. On Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 2,100 points just minutes after trading began, suggesting that Wall Street expects the worst is yet to come. If that turns out to be true, Donald Trump will indeed be a one-term president.
Featured Image Via Fox News
