As the president retreats even sooner than expected to that inevitable position—"Collusion is not a crime!"—his larger project seems to be coming to fruition. From the earliest days of his political career, one of the most prodigious liars in modern history has railed against the media and its bias against him. When "fake news" emerged as a specific term describing made-up stories pushed by non-journalists on Facebook to harvest ad revenue, Trump immediately coopted it into an attack against The Mainstream Media—that is, real journalists.

The president has since admitted that "fake news" to him means "negative coverage," regardless of whether it's true. That is to say, it's any coverage he doesn't like. And when 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl asked him why he continually hammers the media, Trump responded, "I do it to discredit you all, and demean you all, so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you."

But his war on independent information-gathering, which essentially consists of firing the same cannonball over and over, seems to be a roaring success—at least with his militant base. A new CBS News Battleground Tracker poll, flagged by Axios, suggests the Cult of Trump is in full effect:

via CBS News

It has been clear for some time that Trumpism has all the seeds of a genuine authoritarian movement. Chief among them is an all-consuming deference to The Leader, which even extends to granting him control over The Truth itself. "Just remember: what you’re seeing and what you're reading is not what’s happening," Trump said last week in Orwellian fashion, with the implication that whatever he says at this moment is what's really happening.

And that seems to be resonating. If Trump says it, it is so. That's why, in the same CBS poll, 70 percent of Republicans called the Russia investigation a "witch hunt," even though five Trump associates have already pled guilty—some of them for lying to the FBI about their contacts with Russians. The investigation may not be conclusive yet, but it's already uncovered enough to prove it's not some shot-in-the-dark. Republicans have heard Trump's screams that the probe is just a way to slow his agenda—and they agree at a rate of 81 percent—and that he faces more opposition from The Establishment than other presidents, of which 86 percent agree. His campaign is working.

Scott Olson Getty Images

But not all bizarre shifts in the Age of Trump have occurred on the right side of the aisle. The maelstrom of the Russia Question, and Trumpism in general, has scrambled ideologies in perplexing ways. For instance, 84 percent of Democrats now express confidence in the FBI—a break from decades of liberal orthodoxy, which cited, say, the FBI's treatment of Martin Luther King, Jr., to suggest it was an enforcement arm of the establishment. There is no question that increased Democratic support for the FBI is linked to the agency's potential role in halting the scourge of Trumpism.

Similarly, Republicans actually have a more balanced view of how to process the Russia probe as it stands:

via CBS News

While the evidence builds of a conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, and that the president may have been aware of it, the most reasonable position at this point is to "wait and see what the facts show." Many more Republicans (42 percent) than Democrats (23 percent) have accurately processed that a great deal of information is still yet to become public.

Still, you have to wonder how all these findings will interact as things go forward. Sure, it's reasonable to say we need to wait for more evidence to make a judgment on the Trump-Russia question. But if strong Trump supporters proudly report they will almost always believe the president over independent sources of information, what difference will more evidence make? They will accept the president's excuses and explanations when more comes out. They will make some of their own. Already, the same people who started out saying there were no contacts between the campaign and Russians are now saying that "collusion is not a crime." The times, they are a-changin'. How long until we hear that Collusion Is Smart and Everybody Does It?

Sure, there are Republicans who are not "strong Trump supporters," but there aren't many Republicans who don't support Trump at all: the president enjoys the approval of 88 percent of members of his own party. His word has become a veto over potential Republican candidates down-ballot, and some—like Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis—have embarrassed themselves in a scramble to channel his movement and earn his seal of approval. Yes, it's possible that a sufficiently damning report on the Russian question would break the spell that the president has cast over his supporters. But how much would you bet on it?

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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