It was another astonishing week for Trump. At his rally in Phoenix, among other things he “described the people who committed violence at Charlottesville as `thugs’ then repeatedly used the same term to describe protesters who showed up at his rallies.” He implied he would pardon Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was recently sentenced by a federal court to six months in prison for criminal contempt in deliberately violating a court order barring him from racial profiling.
Trump also said that he would shut down the government if funding for his wall on the Mexican border was not included in the government budget appropriations required to be passed in September. The Republicans in Congress rightly seemed terrified that they would be blamed for any government shutdown. Of course, Trump routinely threatens action that he never takes.
All of these things sounded wondrous to the attendees at Trump’s rally. Although you wouldn’t know it from the television cameras, the rally was poorly attended. The venue could hold 10,000 people and photos show there were a maximum of 5,000 there and perhaps as few as 2,000. In any case, Trump clearly wants to keep his base of core supporters strong in their backing for him. He seems to believe that if he retains their support he retains power over the Republicans in Congress. His base, though, continues to shrink. While at some point he will drop to a level of support below which he can’t fall, it seems he has a ways to go: His ultimate support may be just 14%.
With hurricane Harvey moving in on Texas on Friday night, Trump announced that he had pardoned Sheriff Joe Arpaio. While Trump wanted to issue the pardon to please his base, he also wanted to hide the news as much as possible from everyone else. Arizona’s largest newspaper declared that “By pardoning Arpaio, Trump made it clear that institutional racism is not just OK with him. It is a goal.”
The pardon is especially troubling because by doing that Trump is signaling to those working in his administration that they can deliberately violate the law and receive a pardon from him for doing so. As the New York Times said, “if the president can immunize his agents in this manner, the courts will effectively lose any meaningful authority to protect constitutional rights against invasion by the executive branch.”
Just another typical week in Trumpland.
