The outcome of the 2020 presidential election may not hinge on the behavior of Donald Trump's base, but it would be nice to see that base shrink under the crescendo of his incompetence and dishonesty. A combination of three factors may soon fix the seal of impossibility on that hope. It could even cause Trump's base to start doing what it has failed to do since 2016: grow.
What they don't know
John Stuart Mill noted that "facts and arguments, to produce any effect on the mind, must be brought before it." The crescendo of Trump's incompetence and dishonesty has always been muted for his base by Fox News and other sources of information that spare their consumers much exposure to untoward facts and arguments, from a Trumpist point of view. This factor is already notorious. However, it's not decisive by itself. Surveys have shown that Trump voters are not entirely isolated from mainstream news media. We know that they even get perturbing ripples of reality from Fox News itself. So far, then, there exists hope of an awakening.
And what about the palpable human loss and hardship that Trump causes by acts of commission or omission such as his irresponsibility in the face of the coronavirus crisis? There are, after all, facts that bring themselves before the mind unaided.
Mysterious ways
Donald Trump's political base has always been strong in the more paganistic kind of Christianity. Now, many of its members have passed from merely supporting him as a politician to fetishizing him as an instrument of God. They openly speak of him in such terms. So the same cruel assurance which the pious inflict on parents who have lost a child -- that this, too, is part of a divine plan -- can serve to seal fissures in the confidence of Trump's religiously-minded supporters. "God moves in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform." In principle, that all-purpose article of faith can keep even the most painful turn of events from shaking belief in Donald Trump. However, its effect is vindicatory rather than motivational. It lacks any broader appeal than a call to Apollyon-worship.
QAnon
The third, new factor is the stealthy spread of the QAnon cult. What matters about QAnon is not the most conspicuous part of its layered conspiracy theory, the notion of a liberal elite cabal running a pedophilia ring. What matters is the underlying story, which portrays Donald Trump as a secret agent working heroically to defeat the machinations of a bureaucratic "deep state". This conceit, that Trump is not what he seems, has the potential to neutralize every objection to his presidency for a large set of susceptible individuals.
Ignorant buffoonery? Just an act. Spectacles of narcissism, immaturity, mendacity, racism, and subservience to foreign powers? All smoke and mirrors to confound the enemy. Or, if one wishes a particular element -- the racism, for example -- to be real, one can tune belief accordingly. The presumption of a heroic Donald Trump becomes immutable, and everything that seems wrong with him is diligently incorporated into that presumption by the believing mind.
Since Trump's base is largely oblivious of facts and arguments that discredit him, it's primed to adopt the QAnon portrait without much of a strain. Its members are already accustomed to managing the embarrassments that do get through to them by means of broad sophistries: that Trump is no worse than other politicians, or that he's got a plan. On top of that, the sacrilegious view of him as an instrument of God renders his sins irrelevant while exalting his imagined plan to the level of God’s design.
But it's QAnon that will perfect the seal on Trumpism. Its alternate reality will flow into all gaps and over the rough features of all surfaces. Given the single conceit that Trump is an undercover agent waging a struggle more vital than anything we see, it ceases to matter what we see. If he's supposed to be serving some mysterious cause greater than himself, the notion of divine will is always viable. Trump may go on boisterously claiming that it's all about him; but he would say that, wouldn't he? It has already become possible to interpret his words along QAnon lines, as when a New York Times interviewer recently questioned him about his reputation for whiling away too much time in front of a TV set. His reply: "Just the opposite. I don’t watch very much TV. Nobody knows what I do." The Republican National Convention was rife with barely oblique QAnon-signalling.
As the cult of Trump shades into that of QAnon, reservations about the man will fall before the thrill of getting in on what he supposedly represents: a sub rosa movement possessing a vault of secrets and a panoply of symbols. The portentous slogans, the furtively ubiquitous "Q" logo, and the winking freemasonry with other initiates should appeal to more people than Donald Trump himself does, while drawing them to him. His base can then grow at last. By and by, it can easily become a base for someone else.
