The 'base' is Mike Pence: guest blog by Pudd'nhead Wilson
Populism isn't a political movement--it never has been and never will be. Rather it's the method of manipulating discontent by the contented upper classes to make it appear to the discontented lower classes that they will benefit by the manipulation.
I'm not so sure the USA brand of populism is populism: it seems more like a modest experiment in fascism-lite, with an oligarchichal twist and a hit of Diet-Coke. I too disliked DTrump from the beginning, but hoped that he perhaps might bring with him the unintentional blessing of exposing the System, not for what it is but for what it's become--a big media heavy, money grubbing sloth of a contraption that parades its Christian virtues while dropping bombs in Yemen and denying politically persecuted immigrants legal access at the southern border.
What has been interesting i.e. something I hadn't expected, is Trump's administrative and entrepreneurial incompetence: to transfer to politics a phrase that an art critic once applied to a painter, it's so bad it's good. In DTrump's case it isn't that his incompetence is good, it's that it gets worse and worse instead of better and better, to the degree to which even a political cynic might say, 'this is absolutley delightful', knowing the next move will no doubt be even more absurd.
Has anyone noticed that Mike Pence is much more in the picture in the last few weeks? Or is it really only me who's noticed? Pence Tweets now about as frequently as his Boss, he's a presence in virtually all White House communications, he's on TV much more frequently than he was when Trump first took office, albeit lurking. Lurking is a word created especially for a fellow like Pence, he lurks, he lives to lurk, he's a good lurker, lurking becomes him and so forth. I suspect the power elite in this country have just about had it with Trump, hence Pence's new visibility, Lurker-in-Chief.
People worried that if Trump's deposed--impeached, found guilty of obstruction of justice--his 'base' will revolt in some sort of holy national insurrection, shouldn't worry. There's really no such thing as Trump's base.
You know how I know there's really no such thing as Trump's 'base'? Because he doesn't really believe there is either. I've known men like DTrump: they only trust the flimsiest of idols, and they do so without thinking.