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As Donald Trump’s trade war continues to hurt many of his supporters, MSNBC host Donny Deutsch offered his theory on why the red hat-wearing crowd continues to stand by the president.

Deutsch said that Trump has convinced his backers that the biggest threat to their livelihood is immigrants and minority groups – even as his own policies are hurting them.

“That’s the core reason that people look the other way, even if it ends up hurting them,” the MSNBC host said. “It’s insanity.”

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Deutsch said:

This is my whole theory on Trump. The reason everything peels off of Trump is it comes back to the way he got elected is the way a dictator gets elected. He points to enough people who are unhappy with their lot in life and says it’s not your fault. It’s the black person’s fault, it’s the Muslim’s fault, it’s the banker’s fault, it’s the media’s fault. And you get enough rich people to look the other way. Once you have that, people will believe anything because that gives them reason to really believe, okay, whatever my plight in life — and if they let go of that, they have to look in the mirror and go, uh oh, maybe it is my fault. That’s the core reason that people look the other way, even if it ends up hurting them. It’s insanity.

To Trump supporters, fighting culture wars is more important than their own livelihood

According to a new report in Bloomberg, citing a trade group, Trump’s trade war with China is set to cost the country nearly half a million manufacturing jobs. And as Joy Reid pointed out on Saturday, Tump’s tariffs have already hurt U.S. consumers and farmers, many of whom support this president.

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that Trump supporters don’t actually care if the president’s policies hurt them. There is nothing he could do to wither their support.

Instead, what they really want – and Trump gives it to them – is a loud strongman who tells them that the source of their problems is somebody else: Mexican immigrants, peaceful Muslims, the media.

As I wrote earlier, Trump will likely again rely on foreign help to try to win a second term in the White House. That seems to be the first part of his overarching reelection strategy.

But another core element of his 2020 campaign will be to go back down the well of minority resentment that still has yet to dry up. And what Trump supporters have shown – even as the president hurts them – is that they are more interested in fighting culture wars with a racist bully than electing a president who will fight for them.

Insanity is the only appropriate way to describe it.

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