For many conservatives, they support Mr. Trump because he’s their de facto leader in a cultural war. Liberals mock Christianity and demean Christian morals. Conservatives respect our police and military, while liberals romanticize street thugs. Conservatives’ tax dollars help pay for public schools and colleges that indoctrinate liberal values. Out here some conservatives aren’t even calling them “public” schools anymore. They call them “government schools,” as in, “We don’t want to pay for your damn ‘government schools.’ ” They’re afraid to send their kids to them.
They bend over backward to justify everything Mr. Trump does, largely because they don’t believe what anyone in the news media is telling them, except for maybe Fox News.
A prominent businessman here, for example, views the “whole fake Russian story” as “a coup attempt by the media.”
A sergeant major in the Iowa National Guard recently overheard a pro-Trump law enforcement friend and me disagreeing about Mr. Trump. He shook his head and smiled, telling me, “Well, all I know, Bob, is that my unit’s budget just doubled.”
Now, they’re not entirely blind to the damage Mr. Trump is doing to the Republican brand. Democrats are energized, and though Mr. Trump’s base is holding, “soft” Trump voters are slowly sinking his approval numbers. One friend who twice voted for Barack Obama now sees World War III on the horizon and deeply regrets his vote for Mr. Trump.
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I see only one thing that might give my conservative friends pause about turning against Mr. Trump — Fox News. After all, it helped create him. Most people here watch Fox News, and have for a generation.
Fox News is always on the TV in diners and other restaurants. In bars, if there isn’t a game on, Fox News is there. If there are a couple of televisions or more, one will most likely be tuned to Fox. And it’s not only TV. It’s radio. Our big “blow torch” conservative radio station out of Des Moines blasts conservative indignation and self-righteousness for hours a day and serves up Sean Hannity for hours every night.
