THE GOP USED TO BE BETTER AT MANUFACTURING CONSENT THAN THIS

According to the developing narrative of this moment, President Trump was riding high after Attorney General William Barr's letter seemed to clear him of all charges in the Russia investigation, but then Trump and his administration spoiled the celebration by going off on tangents. Here's Politico:

OVER THE LAST WEEK, the TRUMP ADMINISTRATION has taken several tactical and political steps that would be seen, in any other administration, as such massively stupid political blunders that one would wonder if someone is asleep at the switch.

... These all seem, to some degree, to be self-defeating. And they are all grabbing headlines in a week where PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP should be riding high after the letter from A.G. BILL BARR.

-- RE-LITIGATING HEALTH CARE...

-- GUTTING THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS...

-- TRUMP’S WAR ON PUERTO RICO...

But the administration and the GOP lost the public even before Trump interrupted his victory lap this way. Three polls, all of them begun before the administration turned to the issues named in the Politico post, revealed that the public still doesn't believe Trump is innocent.

Reuters/Ipsos:

When asked specifically about accusations of collusion and obstruction of justice, 48 percent of poll respondents said they believed “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election” ...

Fifty-three percent said “Trump tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration” ...

Politico/Morning Consult:

The poll shows a plurality of voters, 47 percent, think Trump “tried to impede or obstruct the investigation into whether his campaign had ties to Russia” ... Thirty-nine percent don’t think Trump tried to impede the investigation....

And now CNN:

A majority (56%) says the President and his campaign have not been exonerated of collusion, but that what they've heard or read about the report shows collusion could not be proven. Fewer, 43%, say Trump and his team have been exonerated of collusion....

Nearly 6 in 10 Americans want to see Congress continue to pursue hearings into the findings of Mueller's report. Just 43% feel Congress ought to end the investigation completely following the release of Barr's summary of Mueller's findings.

The GOP certainly tried hard enough to manufacture consent on this issue. The party spent days attacking media figures and Democratic officeholders who'd described the Trump campaign's activities as collusion. Much of the mainstream press agreed that this naming and shaming was justified. But others in the media pushed back, and high-profile Democrats like Adam Schiff didn't back down.

Maybe this would have worked for the GOP under somewhat different circumstances, but the public has never liked Donald Trump, and even many of those who do like him don't think he's honest or trustworthy. He has no credibility when talking about his own misconduct, especially when his deference to Vladimir Putin is so obvious. Beyond that, the GOP's shaming and silencing messages were crafted to appeal to the party base only. The message was: We told you so. All along we said that Trump skeptics were evil, and we were right. In a country where most people are Trump skeptics, that wasn't a message likely to win converts.

The process of turning victory into defeat didn't begin when the president decided to reopen the issue of healthcare. It began when the Republican Party mocked anyone who'd ever suspected Trump is corrupt. That's most of America. Now a plurality of America, if not a majority, has rejected the spin.