Trump backers not fazed by recent turmoil

67 percent of Republicans approve of comments on Charlottesville

For Parson Hicks, a health care finance executive who supports President Donald Trump, this past week has felt a little like deja vu. Trump says something. His opponents howl and then predict, with certainty, a point of no return.

The last time this happened, she said, was in October with the notorious “Access Hollywood” recording of Trump talking lewdly about women. His opponents were sure he was finished. His supporters knew better.

“Let’s be honest, the people who are currently outraged are the same people who have always been outraged,” said Hicks, 35, a lifelong Republican who lives in Boston. “The media makes it seem like something has changed, when in reality nothing has.”

It was a week of incessant tumult, when Trump tumbled into open warfare with some in his own party over his statements on the violence in Charlottesville, Va.; business executives abandoned his advisory councils; top military leaders pointedly made statements denouncing racism in a way he did not; and his embattled chief strategist, Steve Bannon, stepped down. But around the country, Trump’s supporters — and, according to many polls, Republicans more broadly — agreed with his interpretation of a swirl of racially charged events and stood with him amid still more clatter and churn.

Sixty-seven percent of Republicans said they approved of the president’s response to the violence in Charlottesville, compared with just 10 percent of Democrats, according to a CBS News survey conducted over the past week.

It’s an indication of what now seems an almost immutable law of the Trump presidency. There are signs that Trump’s support among Republican leaders and some Republican voters is weakening. But in an increasingly tribal United States, with