Weird how the tide is turning

I am going to say something that might shock you.

I don’t care much for Donald Trump.

I think he is a self-centered authoritarian who cares nothing for the country, the Constitution, or his own supporters. Everything is transactional, and everything is centered on him. He is the most venal, dishonest, and treacherous person ever to occupy the Oval Office, and in my opinion, and that of many historians and political scientists, a genuine threat to American democracy.

That said, about 30-35% of Americans absolutely love him. Another 15% or so have issues with his behavior but are willing to hold their nose and support him, some out of distaste for the political left and others out of concern for their own immediate financial needs. For a lot of those voters, those concerns outweigh any existential talk about long-range threats to democracy or short-range threats to various minority groups that do not include them. Such voters overlook some of his disturbing threats, considering them mere bombast (“that’s just how he talks”) or exaggerations by his political opponents.

Sometimes, those threats do penetrate the fog. Take the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a policy guide for the early months of a conservative presidency (that foundation is probably the most powerful conservative think tank and has been for half-a-century). They put those things out every election cycle, and no one pays much attention - but this time it has a lot of stuff in it that is disturbing, or downright terrifying, to most Americans, and it DID get attention. More and more people have been looking into it the past couple of months, and it makes them very nervous. How do we know it has penetrated some of the fog? Because Trump has started denying any association with it, or any knowledge of what it is - which is ridiculous, because most of the people who wrote it are former members of his administration, and those who were not are expected to be appointed to the next one if he wins. For some of that aforementioned 35% percent, his denials count as gospel (“I mean, really, would a guy like Donald Trump LIE?”), but for the rest of us, we know what it means when he doth protest overmuch.

Still. That’s not enough to turn the tide. I, and people like me, have talked until we’re blue in the face about the very real dangers of another Trump presidency. People who are already inclined toward Trump rarely pay any attention - if anything, they double down harder.

Many studies in recent years have shown that a significant proportion of die-hard Trump supporters are generally inclined toward wanting an authoritarian “strong man” leader. Now, don’t twist what I’m saying - I’m not saying all Trump supporters, or even necessarily a majority, but rather a significant proportion - significant enough to make a difference in an election. For those folks, if their Fearless Leader is besmirched by smarmy intellectuals like me, those are points in his favor. It reinforces the idea of us-vs.-them and plays into the victimhood and persecution complex that always gives strongmen ammunition to grow stronger.

Which is why I think the Harris/Walz campaign is really onto something with their new approach of calling Trump and Vance “weird” over and over again. Nothing undermines authoritarians more than laughing at them. It takes their power away. Painting them as a diabolical threat (even if they are) makes certain of their followers admire them even more, because they are clearly STRONG to scare people so badly. Portraying that strongman as ridiculous and irrelevant, that’s a different story.

When I was in middle school, I was a scrawny little brainiac with a smart mouth. Bullies gravitated toward me, seeing me as easy prey. I didn’t physically fight them unless I had to, to defend myself, because I would’ve had my butt handed to me. Nor did I kowtow to them. No, I cut them down, insulted them, and laughed at them. Pretty soon the whole class was laughing at them, even their own sycophants, and they’d slink away… and usually never bother me again. I bet some people reading this column remember some of those moments.

When people start to become embarrassed by the very bullies they have clung to, they no longer want to be associated with them… because they don’t want to be weird, too. Trump is flailing now, freaking out at his (very) sudden reversal of fortune. I think he is losing potential votes every day - not from them flipping to Harris but from them being so embarrassed by him they stay home on Election Day.

Let’s keep it up.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.