Earl Ofari Hutchinson
“He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump.” Trump knew full well that he would ignite the predictable firestorm of outrage, protest, and assaults on him with this barbaric, gutter, always self-promoting slander, and slur of Rob Reiner on his Truth Social Media.
But the operative word in Trump’s gutter broadside, is “predictable.” Predictable in the sense that it was not as the legions of those outraged by the slur charged –looney, deranged and crossing the line. It was knowing and calculated.
Trump knows his MAGA Nation base backwards and forwards and has played them like a fine tune Stradivarius relentlessly for nearly a decade They have faithfully delivered for him every time. Two terms in the White House, and tens of millions of votes. He can do no wrong with them no matter how outrageous, and seeming crack pot his hatchet job libels, lies and name calling against real and imagined enemies. Reiner fits neatly into the mold and pattern of Trump’s calculation.
He knew full well that haranguing Reiner as a “crazed” Trump hater, and as one who practically invited his murder, would get the on-cue head nods, even if a bit quieter this time, from his legions. They believe, like him, that Reiner and the liberal, Hollywood elite, are indeed corrupt, degenerate, conservative hating, mortal enemies, and fully deserving of any misfortune that falls on them. Reiner being no exception.
The fact that he and his wife Michele were stout champions of civil rights, and human rights causes, and in Rob’s case, had put his official stamp with his produced film on the hideous white Christian nationalist cult and the hate it fuels, made him a top-level marked man by Trump and his dogged followers.
The ultimate proof of Trump’s base calculation that slurring Reiner would work is the polls. Trump’s approval rating in the wake of the verbal mugging remained static. That is, he got the usual fifty plus disapproval rating. But the more telling number is the usual forty to forty-five percent approval rating that he always gets. These are his people and to him they will always be the only ones who count in his calculus no matter what anyone else says or thinks about him.
Trump Knew Exactly What He Was Doing in Slurring Reiner
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His latest book is “Why are There So Many Hungry People in America? (Middle Passage Press) He is the publisher of thehutchinsonreport.net.