President Trump has steadfastly hewed to a simple M.O., which is to always claim he is winning, no matter how overwhelming the evidence grows to the contrary. Trump just
raged at Democrats for failing to fund his wall, while simultaneously boasting that he has
already securedthe border and that the wall is
indeed on track to getting built.
Last week, Trump
buffoonishly claimed that the news implicating him in his former lawyer’s felony “totally clears the president.”
But, while such outward displays of brash confidence may snooker his more gullible MAGA-hat-wearing supporters, the evidence is everywhere that a very different reality has begun to pierce the bubble. Meanwhile, new data shows that outside this bubble, majorities of the American people fully grasp that reality, and have done so for a long time now.
A
new CNN poll finds that Trump’s approval rating is mired at 39 percent, and it shows that even as ongoing investigations involving Trump and his orbit are bearing fruit, the American people continue to support the probe and believe it is turning up evidence of wrongdoing.
...
It’s not always clear whether Trump believes his own brashness or that of the media voices that fill his bubble. Trump appears to have a sense of his own vulnerability at critical moments, such as when he
backed down numerous times from trying to remove Mueller when his advisers warned him off it.
But it does appear that the “reality tremors” are shaking the White House more deeply than usual. If so, this emerging reality is not news to most Americans — at least not to those who are outside the reach of that bubble.