Donald Trump likes to call people "stupid." Whether he's referring to President Obama, Congressional leaders, the media or his opponents, the Republican front-runner has so far delighted his supporters these past eight months with an unprecedented flurry of demeaning ad-hominem attacks and inflammatory rhetoric.
But now he's calling these very same supporters stupid, claiming there's nothing he can do to lose their backing, not even if he committed a horrific act of violence.
"I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn't lose any voters, okay?" Trump said at a rally over the weekend in Sioux Center, Iowa. "It's, like, incredible."
Well, Trump's narcissism is, like, incredible, okay? Think for a minute about what he said, and perhaps the underlying disdain for his supporters. His ego is so gargantuan, his rapacious Id so deprived, he's convinced himself that he's so important and desirable that he could literally kill someone without political cost. The level of "they'll-love-me-no-matter-what" presumption here is astounding.
That's not exactly a ringing endorsement of his supporters' intelligence or ability to reason. It's pretty insulting, in fact. That Trump thinks his "fans" are mindless morons who will blindly follow their Pied Piper like rats into the drowning pool is quite telling. But will they care? Will they finally turn all their "anger" on him? Will this insult -- one that's aimed squarely at them instead of one of the bloviating billionaire's enemies -- be the long overdue final straw that brings down this vulgar house of cards?
It's one thing to sit at a rally and be entertained by a modern-day Morton Downey Jr. as he mercilessly rips into his opponents. It's quite another to be the target of his contempt.