Nicolle Wallace tears Trump apart for making 'fools of his supporters'

Before serving as an anchor for MS NOW, Nicolle Wallace was an adviser to the Republican presidential campaign of the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona. Yet when discussing President Donald Trump's supporters in the same Republican Party for which she used to work, Wallace argued on Tuesday that they have been made into fools by the very man in whom they placed so much trust.

According to Wallace, Trump possesses no meaningful thoughts or concern on "their worries, on their spouses' worries, on their kids' lives, on the cost of groceries, the cost of gas, the lies and betrayal over the largest elite sex-trafficking ring in global history in the Epstein files, and the promise to never have another forever war, and then taking the country to war and spending our treasure in Iran."

Instead Trump's political movement is based on the assumption "that the foot soldiers of the Big Lie will view the election lie as bigger and more important, and more of a gut-shaper, than the cost of living, the cost of a war with Iran, and the cost of a lie and a betrayal and being treated like a chump," Wallace argued.

After allowing another guest to speak, Wallace continued that Trump "never intended to expose anyone like himself who was mixed up in the Epstein files. And he never intended to keep his promise about no more forever wars. Meanwhile, as they've suffered and been hurt by his economy and his wars and his lies, he's richer than he's ever been. And anyone who thinks that being president is the best move for a so-called businessman is going to fail that chump test. He's made fools of his supporters."

Speaking with AlterNet on Tuesday, Dr. Justin Wolfers — a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the Peterson Institute and a University of Michigan professor of economics and public policy — explained how the One Big Beautiful Bill, Trump's signature economic legislation, harmed his own non-wealthy supporters.

"What we saw in the One Big Beautiful Bill was a series of tax cuts primarily targeted to the wealthy, almost like they couldn't figure out where middle-class Americans were, except when it came to spending cuts, and the spending cuts on things like Medicare or SNAP — those cuts were very large," Wolfers explained. "So this was really an anti-Robin Hood bill. And then the question is, if you go back and look at other individual bills, some of them have involved tax cuts for the rich; that's what the Reagan bills did. Some of them have involved spending cuts for the poor. None have involved both at this scale. I don't think it's even remotely debatable that this was the largest single redistribution from poor to rich."

To understand why so many people support Trump, cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan told AlterNet in August that many Trump supporters back him for the same reason many people join cults — he encourages them to demonize "others" that are in fact not responsible for their suffering.

"I emphasize how these destructive groups, like the Trump movement, are lying all the time," Hassan told AlterNet. "And part of the appeal is really about using emotionally leading rhetoric to scare people, to create 'the other,' to demonize. I'll quote Eric Hoffer's 1951 book, 'The True Believer.' He said, 'The strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.' We know that, evolutionarily, we're going to overreact to anything that's a perceived danger or threat to us. So 'owning the libs' means that they are a danger, and he's going to save people from them."

Throughout his presidency, Trump and his political movement have vilified a wide range of groups including immigrants, women, racial minorities, transgender people, gay people, Muslims, Jews, the media, Canada, Ukraine, academics, scientists, leftists and Democrats.

As Hassan continued, "A lot of his messaging was, 'I'm doing this for you.' So he was getting people to identify and create a pseudo-identity as 'Trumpers' to follow him" as he has waged his demonization campaigns against whichever group or groups he has chosen to target.

https://youtu.be/WTFwgGQrBRg