WILL TRUMP'S FANS BELIEVE THAT HE'S THE ONE ATTACKING THEM?

The New York Times has a story about President Trump's budget headlined "Trump Takes a Gamble in Cutting Programs His Base Relies On." We're told:

The approach is a risky gamble for Mr. Trump, whose victory in November came in part by assembling a coalition that included low-income workers who rely on many of the programs that he now proposes to slash.

So will Trump's voters blame him if programs they rely on are significantly cut? Before you answer, read this Washington Post story:

NASHVILLE — Soon after Charla McComic’s son lost his job, his health-insurance premium dropped from $567 per month to just $88, a “blessing from God” that she believes was made possible by President Trump.

“I think it was just because of the tax credit,” said McComic, 52, a former first-grade teacher who traveled to Trump’s Wednesday night rally in Nashville from Lexington, Tenn., with her daughter, mother, aunt and cousin.

The price change was actually thanks to a subsidy made possible by former president Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which is still in place, not by the tax credits proposed by Republicans as part of the health-care bill still being considered by Congress.

It has been difficult for many Americans to keep up with the changes brought by Obamacare and exactly how the Republican proposal, if enacted, would affect their lives. But for Trump’s most dedicated supporters, it’s simply easier to trust the president is making things better and will follow through on his promise to provide “insurance for everybody” and “great health care for a fraction of the price.”

McComic said she’s not worried about her disability benefits changing or her 3-year-old granddaughter getting kicked off Medicaid or her 33-year-old son’s premiums going up.

“So far, everything’s been positive, from what I can tell,” she said, waiting for Trump’s rally here to begin Wednesday night. “I just hope that more and more people and children get covered under this new health-care plan.”

If Trump fans give him credit for things he hasn't done, it seems likely to me that they'll absolve him of blame for things he actually does. They'll blame President Obama, or congressional Democrats, or congressional Republicans. When it comes to Trump, they'll hear no evil.

The Post story also quotes Nancy Ware, whose 35-year-old son works in the service industry and can't afford insurance, even as he resents poorer people whose insurance seems to more highly subsidized.

Ware hopes that Trump can change this, although she says she won’t fault him if he can’t. She doesn’t believe news reports saying that 24 million people could lose their coverage under his plan.

“Nothing is in concrete yet. Give the man a chance,” she said. “Until you hear it from Donald J. Trump himself — and not the news media — then don’t even worry about it. Wait until you hear the man say it, because he will tweet it, he will Facebook it or he will go onto national television and tell everybody at the same time.”

If a health care bill passes, or when a Republican budget passes, Trump will just have to say that nothing bad will happen and his base will assume that anything bad that does happen couldn't possibly be his fault. Everything's good! He gave his word on that!

I think the scales will eventually fall from the Trumpers' eyes, but it will take years. It probably won't happen until a second term. And if we outvote the Trumpers in 2020, they'll always believe that he would have been the greatest president of all time if we hadn't viciously deprived him of four more years.