Threatening Greenland, going after Venezuela, pouting about not winning a Nobel Peace Prize and showing no interest in democracy is a turnoff for the non-MAGA crowd.
Throughout 2017 and into 2018, I hoped that a moment would come when Republicans would see Donald Trump clearly. But years ago, I accepted that the scales-falling-from-the-eyes revelation would never come for the MAGA faithful. They are too invested.
Still, as a recent Chicago Tribune report found, a small but significant percentage of 2024 Trump voters either regret their vote or have serious concerns about the way things are going. When elections are decided by just a few hundred thousand votes in seven states, those defections are crucial.
It’s entirely possible that those swing voters care only about the cost of living and not about the collapse of American decency. Still, it’s worth spelling out one of the great delusions of the Trump era that has been definitively unmasked by the “Davos Debacle.”
Trump has never believed in the principles that NATO was founded to promote and preserve. He doesn’t feel affinity for liberal democracy. Recall that in early 2024, Trump recounted a conversation (probably fictional) with the leader of a “large” European nation who supposedly asked Trump whether America would come to its defense in the event of a Russian invasion. Trump claimed to have replied: “You didn’t pay? You’re delinquent? No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay.”
Trump doesn’t respond to naked aggression the way normal people do.
