Trump: The FAKE NEWS media is the enemy of the American people!

[Pat Mustard]

I'd say what Trump is doing now is massively destructive to him. He is now on the defensive about a lot of things. And the quickest way you get a politicians supporters to realise that he's lying is to get him into denial mode, as in a lot of cases that causes the supporters to find out why he's in denial, and they research the facts for themselves. When you lose the power of the narrative like that support often disappears very quickly.

And of course Trump's incoherence and easily disproved lies makes compounds his problems.

I disagree. It's obvious to everyone that Trump is lying. His supporters simply don't care.

I'd say they've not heard a lot of the stuff that's actually going on. Remember they look at and listen to the likes of Fox, Breitbart and Limbaugh, sources of information which only impart a very partial amount of information, blocking vast swathes of reality and inventing fantasies in order to prop up their worldview to the detriment of the truth and critical analysis.

People who follow these sources rarely venture outside that bubble, so hearing Trump deny that Flynn was contacting Russia and was sacked for same is quite possibly the first they've heard of his links to Putin. And "I never heard X. Why is he denying X?" is a very strong precursir to "There must be something in X". As Terry Pratchett elaborated in Interesting Times, getting your opponent into denial mode is a great way to get his followers to believe he's up to his armpots in what he's denying.