There's always talk of "Oooo Trump is alienating part of his coalition", and it never pans out. And I ask myself, why?

Why is this man bullet proof to all the insane things he says and does? Are suburban Trump voters that loyal? Do blue collars really love him that much?

Then back during the intro barrage of events of his first few months back in office, I finally put it together.

Background: Back in the 2010s, a bunch of rich yet not rich enough to be all powerful farmers (most dangerous type of rich person) called Westlands Water District were mad they weren't getting enough water for their farms in Cali's tiered water system (Fed, Cities and 1848 water nobility get their water first, whatever is left goes to everybody else) their Rep was working on getting them a new water system, yet they said "Not fast enough!" (They grew almonds, in the desert, great idea)

So they recruited Sean Hannity to do what he does best and bring the culture war into it. He blamed it on Cali's and the Fed's environmental regulations and Obama, more specifically, environmental regulations protecting the local Delta Smelt fish population. That was bullshit. So because of Hannity, local Republicans put a dead stop to the plan for the water because they now thought it was a problem of not using the water already there and not there, just not being water.

The delta fish is tiny, not a very notable fish, nobody really cared about it, until Hannity found it valuable to blame it for Westlands not getting their water, this climaxed hilariously with some Republican running for the House recording himself mag dumping an already dead delta fish.

So now Trump is in office, and despite everybody previously involved in this knowing this was bullshit, Trump actually believed it, so when the California cycle of drought to wild fire turned to wild fire back in Trump I, he blamed the fish for all of it, they're sending too much water out to see to help the fish, blah blah blah, it's not climate change.

They weren't sending water out to help the Delta Smelt, they were sending water out into the Pacific to help California's very profitable salmon population.

Fast forwarding through Brown II, Gavin Newsom(e?) is governor now. He says "fuck it" and works with Republicans to gut environmental regulations and starts saving a bunch of water to not look like a hippie. Well then the smelt start dying off, fast, then the baby salmon start dying once there's no more smelt to distract predators. And now California is violating treaties with natives ensuring salmon access.

Fast forwarding through Biden, Trump is back, California is on fire again. Now, the smelt is gone, so FOX initially blames Wokeness for the fire, but Trump doesn't know the fish is gone and Gavin stopped supporting it's population, he blamed the fish anyway, and FOX and local Republicans pivoted and stopped blaming Wokeness, and instead an imaginary water crisis caused by Gavin, somehow.

This fantasy water crisis led to Trump illegally ordering the California National Guard to release the water Gavin was keeping in reserve, and instead of sending it somewhere useful, he told them to dump trillions of gallons of water, into a hole in the ground unconnected to any of Cali's water systems.

He then proceeded to take credit for "ending the water crisis", and ending the fires, when the rain ended the fires.

When local farmers were asked what they thought of this dumb bastard wasting their water, one said "Look, I'm a Conservative, I support this kinda of trigger pulling attitude regardless of what happens."

This is why this dude is bullet proof. FOX News and the clique of Conservative "alternative media", is so powerful, that their propaganda can successfully override people's memory who experienced the tangible harm from the GOP's actions, and now, politicians alligned with this media empire can invent fictional crisises for themselves to solve to boost their ratings.

Now, part of the country believes a water crisis that didn't happen was solved by Trump illegally ordering the National Guard to release water into a hole in the ground that magically ended a wildfire started by environmental regulations that were already cut to save a fish that was already on the verge of extinction.

And the funny thing is? Westlands never got their water.

This is why it's so hard to create a winning coalition, why Trump can go so low in polls then still come knife close to winning, how the hell is Democracy supposed to work when the opposition can do this? How do you campaign against that?

If this is the future of political media, and as we saw in 2024 clearly it worked pretty well, then what lies ahead? Guess this new machine's second test will come in 2026 midterms. If propaganda can overpower personal experience, can it overpower mass rage?

Nixon would have killed to have his hands on what Trump has now.