CAMPAIGN/SUPPORTERS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “As some on the right howled about a series of reversals by President Trump on a number of his campaign promises — conned, betrayed, sold out, they said — Rush Limbaugh asked his listeners on Thursday [4-13-17] whether any of that flip-flopping really mattered.
‘See what Jeff Sessions is doing?’ Mr. Limbaugh said of the attorney general, answering his own question: ‘Damn straight.’
‘Have you seen what the job situation is?’ he asked.
‘Have you seen what the economic forecasts in the future are?’ he went on.
The sentiment that Mr. Limbaugh was homing in on — the undented confidence that many Trump supporters have in the president as a get-things-done leader and deal maker — is the reason many conservatives say they do not think Mr. Trump will suffer much as he abandons some of his policy stances. They are not inclined to punish him, they say, even after he backed off his hard lines on NATO, the Chinese and the Export-Import Bank, and attacked Syria after having opposed such intervention.
No matter how many people try to tell them they have been played for fools, much to their annoyance, that is not a conclusion they seem likely to reach before Mr. Trump even marks his 100th day in office.
They knew all along that they were not voting for a man with concrete convictions. And they continue to see that lack of rigidity — his preference for the transactional over the dogmatic — as a quality they want in a chief executive.”
-Jeremy W. Peters, “Focused on Trump’s Successes, Many Supporters Are Unfazed by His Reversals,” The New York Times online, April 14, 2017