Betrayal of the base?

How is it—someone asked me—that Donald Trump betrays his base on both tariffs and Scott Pruitt while that base gives him a pass?

It’s because he hasn’t … betrayed his base, that is, yet.

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Yes, Trump’s trade skirmish salvo toward China on steel tariffs has led to China’s announced retaliation with vows of steep new tariffs on American soybeans, a product precious to Arkansas agricultural profits largely because of China’s massive importation of it, which steadies good prices for it.

And, yes, the specter of new Chinese tariffs on soybeans creates the next-to-worst economic factor for Arkansas farmers, which is uncertain sales at lower prices.

The absolute worst factor? That would be those lower prices and reduced sales coming to fruition.

They haven’t, yet, and won’t for a while, if at all.

So far, Trump has merely been Trump—making bold or reckless statements, depending on your view, that introduce a new kind of toughtalking sheriff but either could turn out to be mere tactics for negotiation, or typical inconsequential hooey.

Trump won overwhelming majorities among Arkansas farmers in 2016. He won those for several reasons, but mainly these four—an aversion to Hillary Clinton, an aversion to Barack Obama, an aversion to new environmental policies that endangered the energy-generating way of life for the state and, last but hardly least, an embrace of Trump’s theme to take America back to a time when it wasn’t such an overrun wimp.

That last two remain in effect for now for Trump-devoted Arkansas farmers. They like the easing of environmental regulations. They like getting tough with China.

They don’t like China returning the favor and focusing their retribution on them, but, for now, the retaliatory tariffs aren’t in place, prices aren’t affected, and the Trump administration is assuring the agriculture lobby that this is all about a negotiation and that back-channel conversations are happening.

At this point Arkansas farmers see Trump’s best side—his mouth side—and hold out hope they’ll be protected eventually in whatever gets negotiated or settles out toward making America no longer an overrun wimp.

They’re all right with being a tactical pawn. They just don’t want actually to be sacrificed.

If soybean prices eventually plummet because Trump indeed sacrificed Arkansas farmers to try to rebuild Pennsylvania’s steel economy, then we can assess betrayal and the base’s sentiment.

But, even then, there are things the Trump administration can try to do to hold soybean farmers harmless, or nearly so.

Meantime, on Pruitt, remember that the Oklahoman has headed the Environmental Protection Agency as it has scaled back those offending regulations. For the Trump base, at least locally, that counts for more than spending too much on his security detail and taking apparent favors on his travel and accommodations.

To the anti-Trump cry that Pruitt is not draining the swamp but frolicking in it, the local Trump base says the policies count for more.

Anyway, that base believes Washington politicians have been luxuriating in such largesse much too long and that the media is going after Pruitt only because he’s a Trump agent. That base remains assured that Trump is all about draining the swamp, except maybe for the part in which Pruitt is splashing.

The brilliant self-inoculation of Trumpism is that it is so defined by angry outsiders as a champion of angry outsiders that rules of behavior and accountability don’t apply.

Criticism can be deflected on the basis that the criticism is the old way’s desperate resistance to the new way.

Reports of misbehavior can be deflected on the basis that smug insiders who reveled in the old way got away with the same or worse.

The Trump base will never feel betrayed as long as Trump is talking tough toward China without real consequence and the EPA administrator is undoing Obama-era regulations even as he takes another swan dive into the swamp.

You’re not going to beat Trump by waiting for his base to crumble. You’re going to beat him by having a candidate who can get more total votes not just nationwide, but in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

And even if the bottom falls out on soybean prices because of a lost game of chicken with the Chinese, soybean farmers of eastern Arkansas aren’t going to run into the arms of any emerging Democratic presidential candidate except maybe New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

For now, Trump is not betraying the base. He’s merely playing it.

And the base is not feeling abused. It’s merely feeling used.

John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers’ Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @ johnbrummett Twitter feed.