Some Trump Supporters Renounce Support After Sh*thole Comments

Here are a sampling:

@realDonaldTrump I bought into the #MakeAmericaGreatAgain campaign. I voted for you. Starting to regret my decision. This country was built by great Americans from #shitholecountries. Please "SHUT THE F**K UP" you are making this country look very bad.

https://twitter.com/TomRuszczyk/status/951792682279604224

President @realDonaldTrump your "shithole countries" comment is unpresidential, and I'm VERY sorry I voted for you! #Haiti #Africa

https://twitter.com/Robbin_Young/status/951642216555978753

This woman, Robin, was definitely Trump supporter and a more prominent one on Twitter at that.

I voted for @realDonaldTrump , and I regret it. He is a racist, foolish old man. Thank you @donlemon for saying these clear facts to our nation. #ImSorry #donlemon #Haiti

https://twitter.com/Ahsiqa/status/951657299973627904

@realDonaldTrump I voted for you and now I find out you are a RASIST. What are doing to our great country.. Please start thinking.

https://twitter.com/wade4365/status/951772391084093440

Well. That is a hilarious lie. Ronald Reagan is. You are a unfortunate joke with racist tendencies. I voted for you, and I'm ashamed of that decision. Especially in light of your recent comments about certain countries.

https://twitter.com/MrlgPerez/status/951648909360812032

Donald Trump Crossed The Line. #FixTrumpIn5Words I am very disappointed, after his #shithole comments. I voted for him, & I do have regret. Too many people are validating him. He's the greatest president ever? How?

https://twitter.com/ScottFordTVGuy/status/951823090522251264

All but one of these come from a Twitter account called Trump_regrets. It is an account that retweets Trump supporters or voters who say they regret voting for him. I have monitored it for a while. I don't enjoy reading it, but I think we also need to know what is causing him to lose support. The margin of victory was that of 70,000 votes over three states. I want to see Trump to get a second term and the Republicans to win midterms. We can't afford to lose support.

There are currently over 2,600 Tweets there of people who express regrets for various reasons. That said, I have looked at the profiles, and there are categories:

1. People who were Democrat, establishment Republican, or Never Hillary who now express regret.

2. People who were strong supporters who regret voting for him.

3. People who are supporters who get angry over something and get mad in the moment, but you check their timelines and see they are conservative or just angry about one thing and likely will not vote Democrat.

4. People who never Tweeted about politics, some with few Tweets at all on their timelines, who often Tweet about just music and sports, who randomly one day decide they regret voting for Trump (suspicious).

5. A handful of liars who never voted for Trump in the first place.

I would rather not be posting this, but I am because I see some of these Tweets & have checked the Twitter history of the accounts I Tweeted. These are people who voted for Trump and supported Trump but who have said they don't support him after the comments that he made.

I gave my thoughts on the comments in an earlier blog post. I said I didn't like the word because I think it offends people in those countries and people from those countries who know their countries has problems but who love them nonetheless. I also think it hurts diplomacy with said countries. That said, this is overreaction by the press because of the word used. It's common sense that some countries are better off than others, and it's also common sense that we can't give TPS to everyone or take in everyone from an impoverished country. Lindsey Graham said in 2013 that people come here because their countries are "hellholes" and no outrage then.

Like every Trump "controversy", the media goes off the wall, but I knew it was worse than usual on Twitter and in the media the night the story broke. CNN (who I don't like but am using as an example because they do have some influence) spent all night calling the President a racist. That isn't exactly new, but they were in overdrive, but they were more blatant.

I feel like the White House could have gotten it under better control very quickly if they had released a statement explaining and clarifying his remarks. Instead, we got a statement where they didn't deny the remarks but rather they offered a vague defense/confirmation. By the time morning came around, they had given the media full control of the narrative. Trump didn't Tweet till morning after seeing the firestorm it had caused when he got up. The frustrating thing with Trump's comm's team is that there are things that I feel could be addressed quickly with a statement that aren't, and the media ends up with full control of the narrative without sufficient pushback. All they are doing is allowing things to fester and the media to gain control of the narrative. The reality is, as I type this, it is Sunday morning, and we still don't really know what was said fully in the meeting. I took his comments as referring to TPS countries, but we don't know what countries he was referring to, what the context was, etc. A clear statement explaining it all would have helped greatly - giving the White House a voice in the narrative.

Examples:

Charlottesville - If anyone read Trump's transcript of the press conference at Trump Tower, they would see that right after he said there were "good people on both sides", he said that he wasn't referring to the white supremacists or nazis who are bad people and must be condemned. Yet they never bring it up, and to this day, the vast majority of people don't know he said it because the media cropped it out.

There was controversy regarding Charlottesville after his first speech, and then there was the second prepared statement where his aides obviously didn't put in any mention of Antifa at all. He then brought up Antifa at the infamous press conference (although not in not in name). What I would have recommended if I were in a position to do so is that after the first statement, have him come out and give a speech decrying racism and then Antifa - citing examples of Antifa from that day and the past. I think with the right wording most of the controversy could be abetted. They didn't do that, but I think after the Trump Tower press conference, they could have put up the full clip of him from the presser, not the edited one, and showed the media is dishonest.

The Widow - That was an easy one. All the White House/Trump had to do was put out a statement explaining that of course La David knew what he signed up for. He knew the risks and dangers, he did it anyway, and that's what makes him a hero. It would have shut up Congresswoman Wilson and ended the whole thing...which dragged on for well over a week.

Obviously we could find others as well.

The media will still hit him, but addressing controversy quickly helps a lot. The AP reported that Trump talked to friends and said the media took his comment out of context. The important thing is to issue a statement or put out a video immediately explaining the context. They will still try to control the narrative, but at least they can't do it without having to include his words.

I've looked at the site Trump Regrets for a while now and have followed the polls. Whenever there is a controversy either from a Tweet or something he said the media goes nuts over, more people say they regret voting for him. Whenever there is a controversy, the polls go down five points on average. Right after tax reform, Trump had managed to climb 7 points over the month in the Gallup. I presume with the book and this comment we will drop again. The unfortunate thing is that these things take away coverage from the good things like the tax bill or the economy. We aren't talking about all the auto jobs, the tax bill (which was not promoted like it should have been judging by the man on the street videos where people don't understand it), the bonuses and wage increases, or the good economy. We are talking about this. I realize not all controversies are avoidable and that the media will attack him anyway, but their usual attacks don't work as well when they don't have controversial statements to attack based on my read of the poll numbers.

In the future, Trump should assume all his meetings with the Democrats/RINOs are going to be leaked straight to the press because they likely will be. Heck, some of his own, underhanded aids leak on him to the press - secretly of course because they want to keep their jobs.  The reality is that the media is calling him a racist, and it has cost him some support.  Therefore while no one expects Trump to be PC, I think he has to be cautious with how he words things in this area.  The sh*thole comments could have been said differently, and it would have helped avoid the controversy. Also, I again reiterate that things would be much better if the White House/Trump put out a full statement or video clarifying controversial remarks immediately. I believe it would help - don't give the media full reign.