President Trump’s Poker Face Is Bluffing His Own Base

 https://www.thedailybeast.com/president-trumps-poker-face-is-bluffing-his-own-base/

This sudden change of heart makes me think of an old poker adage: “If you’ve been at the table for 10 minutes and you don’t know who the sucker is, you’re the sucker.”

But Trump’s approval numbers are still in the high forties. I’m by no means the first to point out that he has a unique ability to remain popular with a steady chunk of this country; even at his lowest approval rating—mere days after fomenting a violent attack on the Capitol, if you can remember that far back—34 percent of the US still “approved” of him. A third of the country! Even jovial, now-amateur-portraitist George W. Bush got down to the low twenties, and he was the guy everyone wanted to have a beer with.

While one in three Americans proudly goes around repeating that slogan and wearing the merch, Trump is buying a $114,000 electric car from his billionaire bestie and telling us all to “shut up” about the price of eggs. Musk might have lost as much as $100 billion recently, but he’s still the richest person in the world by almost that much again. And what does Trump get, besides a car that in his mind only goes 15 miles? Another “donation” of $100 million.

I know we’re not supposed to condescend to the MAGA faithful. Or suggest in any way that the people who helped elect him aren’t smart. They are not stupid. They are not racist. They are not deplorable.

You know what they are, though? The suckers at the table.