In her column for the Washington Post, never-Trumper conservative Jennifer Rubin explained that -- if polling is to be believed -- a 'supermajority" of voters don't believe Donald Trump is trustworthy, meaning his campaign will struggle to bring in much needed undecided voters into the fold with his attacks on Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Noting that the Trump campaign has jumped from calling Biden mentally incapable of governing to being a wild-eyed anarchist without making a dent in the polls where the president is trailing, Rubin suggested Trump is trapped due to his history of making things up.
According to the columnist, recent revelations that the president smeared U.S. military personnel who were either captured or died in service to their country as "losers and suckers" had the ring of truth which will carry over into the election, whereas the president labeling Biden as socialist or drug-enhanced fell on deaf ears.
"Trump’s attacks bounce off Biden in part because he is a well-known and well-liked fixture in American politics. No one outside of the Trump cult actually thinks Biden is a socialist; no one in his right mind thinks Biden uses drugs to improve his performances in public," she wrote before explaining, "Equally important, however, is Trump’s utter lack of credibility with a supermajority of Americans. Frankly, they are not inclined to believe much of anything that comes out of his mouth."
Case in point, she reports, is the fact that the president's credibility took a nosedive due to the coronavirus pandemic.
As Rubin notes, a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows 68 percent don't trust what Trump has to say about the COVIUD-19 health crisis and 67 percent believe he botched the handling of it.
"Trump can tell whatever fables he wants to his unmasked crowds. Right-wing media will uncritically report it. Supposedly respectable conservative pundits will credulously accept his excuses and then change the subject," she wrote before stating that the media is now pushing back at the president's assertions.
Add to that, the public has grown wise to him after almost four years.
"Once the public stops believing a president, there is little he can say to change their minds. As a flawed character witness he no longer has the capacity to defend himself," she wrote before adding, "Trump has lost all credibility — and with it the ability to explain away nearly 200,000 American deaths."
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