Surviving Trump: Supporters Turn On Trump Over Iran, Epstein, And Taxpayer-Funded Ads [Op-Ed]

Welcome back for another episode of Surviving Trump, our regular column where we highlight President Donald Trump’s most recent blunders, Ls and displays of incompetence, corruption and bigotry. It’s a full-time job and nobody has to do it, but everybody should, because government-sponsored propaganda should never go unchallenged, especially when it’s being played on a 24/7 MAGA loop.

So, let’s get into it…

You’re Losing All Your Friends, Trump

According to Politico Playbook, a group of what used to be loyal Trump supporters, known as Front Row Joes, who dedicated their lives to attending every Trump rally, is fracturing, with some members claiming they’re done with the president and will not be voting for the sycophants in his party in the upcoming midterm elections.

Rick Frazier, who said he’s been to more than 100 Trump rallies, told Politico he’s not planning on voting at all in November, and that Trump “can’t be trusted.”

“Epstein crimes and feeding the industrial military complex … those are big nos for me,” Frazier told Playbook. “He promoted himself as a no-war president. That didn’t work out.”

Trisha Hope, who joined the Joes in 2018 after moving out of her apartment and into an RV, which she used to travel to Trump’s rallies — a tour she reportedly funded by selling a book of Trump’s social media posts (I mean, if there was ever a book made to be read by the functionally illiterate, that would be it) — left the group last year, after watching her cult leader duck and dodge demands that he make good on his campaign promise to release all files related to Jeffrey Epstein, and prosecute all offenders.

“It was like a dagger in my heart,” Hope said. “It was like a light switch went on and a veil lifted, and I saw him for who he was, and I have not been able to unsee it since.”

Hope also said she lost hope (sorry, couldn’t help myself) for Trump due to his war of choice in Iran.

“He’s said the war is over 600 different times. He tells us they don’t have a military, they don’t have a navy. They’re still blowing up things. It’s just all lies.” she said.

So, Hope and Frazier-but-no-longer-Joe (again, couldn’t help it) both say they’re done with Trump due to the war in Iran and the Epstein debacle — because white nationalists in office are fine, but white nationalist warmongers and pedophile protectors in office crosses a line — and Hope has even gone as far as to say she would support fresh impeachment proceedings if Democrats take back Congress in November.

“If we do lose the midterms and he is impeached again, I will be walking the halls of Congress in support of that impeachment,” she told Politico.

Why Are We Paying For Trump To Advertise Himself?

Meanwhile, on Monday, Newsweek published a full list of Republicans, including Rep. Thomas Massie, Sen. Thom Tillis, and Sen. John Kennedy, who are speaking out against taxpayer-funded ads for Trump or any of his goons.

“I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” Kennedy said. “Now, the White House sees it differently, but I think there ought to be a rule that you can’t—well, there probably is a rule—you can’t spend public money to promote yourself.”

Kennedy, by the way, is not related to former President John F. Kennedy, but he is speaking out against Trump’s bid to vandalize the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by adding his name to it.

In fact, the Louisiana Republican said during an appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that not only should Trump not be using our coins to promote his idiocy, but he said there should be a new “rule that no politician can have a building named after him when he’s alive.”

If Trump is losing some of the most dedicated cultists in his fanbase and prominent members of the GOP, who does he even have?

Hell, maybe he can get his people back now that the war in Iran is finally drawing to a close.

Wait, his war in Iran is finally drawing to a close, right?

*sigh*

Trump’s War In Iran Is Not Drawing To A Close

According to CBS News, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Tehran is “fully prepared for the war to be resumed,” but he also said diplomacy is still an option, but that’s all “up to President Trump to choose.”

Araghchi’s statement comes after Iran proposed a seven-day ceasefire and the phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian government said the proposition is only good if the U.S. meets conditions laid out in the memorandum of understanding, which we reported on in June. The Trump administration seemed to initially agree to Iran’s terms — as senior U.S. officials had dictated the 14 points of the memorandum to reporters over the phone — before Trump declared his administration’s agreement to be “FAKE NEWS” via social media, which he likely did because the details of the deal would lead any reasonable person to agree that Trump caved to Iran in order to end this stupid war he started.

Trump publicly rejected the proposal again last week, CBS reported, and Iran has insisted it will not change its demands.

So, the war is one of the main reasons Trump is losing support among his own cultists, as well as Republican legislators who have been held captive to the MAGA movement for at least the last decade, but Trump can’t get out of the conflict he and the Israeli government started, because it’s really important for him to save face, despite the reality that there really is no more face to be saved at this point?

Experts Warn Trump Allies Might Use ‘Counting Window’ To Disrupt Midterm Results

So, what’s he going to do about those midterms now? Well, he could always do what he did in 2020, and use his post-election time to spread propaganda aimed at disrupting the counting and certifying of votes.

From The Guardian:

Election experts have warned Donald Trump’s administration could use the crucial hours and days after November’s midterm elections to disrupt the results after struggling to enforce a crackdown on voting.

With less than six weeks remaining until polls close, and control of US Congress in the balance, the post-election “counting window” is seen as as a particularly vulnerable moment by former US federal government officials.

While the US president’s bid to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in ballots was rejected by the supreme court earlier this month, there is apprehension that Trump and his allies could use the period while votes are counted to amplify unfounded allegations in a bid to challenge results that don’t go their way.

“I think because the administration has lost so many of their attempts to disrupt the normal process in court, that they are going to use the claim of foreign interference at the end of voting days to either seize equipment or to seize ballots, whether they’re legally justified to do so or not,” Caitlin Durkovich, a former deputy homeland security adviser for resilience and response on the national security council, told a briefing staged by the Brennan Center for Justice earlier this week.

Besides his many meritless attacks on mail-in voting, which have all failed, Trump has tirelessly pushed the SAVE ACT, called for a federal takeover of the election process, and publicly urged Republican voters to “cheat,” all based on his claims that voter fraud is rampant and widespread in the U.S. — a claim he has never once in the last decade presented a single, solitary shred of evidence to support.

When we say every allegation is a confession with these people, this is exactly what we mean.

SEE ALSO:

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Surviving Trump: The President Misses The Media Attention [Op-Ed]