http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/10/world/americas/donald-trump-apology.html 2016-10-09 21:16:56 Donald Trump’s Loyalists Aren’t Fleeing the Latest Storm The Republican candidate’s supporters are apparently standing by him despite the release of a 2005 recording of him speaking about women in vulgar terms. === The tension that had burned for months like a fuse in To any number of Americans, the lewd, three-minute tape, and the Republican candidate’s halfhearted apologies, were the final straw. The 2008 Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and 35 other But not Kelly Glenn. I met Ms. Glenn, who helps run her vast family ranch along Arizona’s border with Mexico, on a recent reporting trip exploring Mr. Trump’s ideas about immigration, and she was one of several Trump supporters I called over the weekend to see how the tape was playing. She had been herding cattle in the mountains when the political thunderstorm broke on Friday, but when she turned on a radio, Ms. Glenn was, like virtually everyone else, repelled by Mr. Trump’s lascivious boasts of trying to have sex with a married women, or leveraging his celebrity status to grope others. “Shame on him,” she said. “The fact he has no control over his mouth is distressing.” Distressing but not deal killing. Ms. Glenn said she would still vote for Trump. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let That’s the kind of thing I’ve heard time and again since arriving in America this summer to cover this campaign from the perspective of a foreign correspondent. From coal country in West Virginia to the southwestern borderlands, Trump supporters have casually dismissed the litany of insults and outrage that has characterized his campaign. No matter what their candidate said or did — insulting To them, Mr. Trump’s unfiltered populism, including its offensive elements, is actually the attraction: the ability to raise a throbbing finger at a political establishment they regard with suspicion, frustration and erupting anger. Nothing can be beyond the pale, because they refuse to recognize the pale itself. It’s a situation somewhat redolent of Italy under The contest for the White House, the most powerful job on earth, is much more consequential than anything in Italy. And the yawning chasm between Mr. Trump’s supporters and the country’s political class, so apparent this weekend, highlights the delicate position America finds itself in. Before the emergence of the tape, most polls showed Mr. Trump with around 40 percent of the country behind him. He may yet lose ground, but for now a significant part of the electorate finds itself pitched against a Republican Party leadership scrambling to desert its own candidate. Mr. Trump, for his part, has vowed to press ahead, and spent most of the weekend As the furor mounted, I circled back to Ms. Glenn and some of the other Trump voters I had met over the past three months to see if their faith in him had been shaken. Chuck Childers, a coal mine manager in West Virginia, said Mr. Trump’s comments about women were a “nonevent” in his community, where the Republican enjoys a commanding lead. Media attacks were only increasing the sense of defiance that many local people felt toward America’s metropolitan elite. “He’s an arrogant, swaggery kind of guy,” Mr. Childers told me. “So if you’re surprised by his behavior, you’re the one who’s crazy.” For others, the grotesque language of the video was hard to stomach. David Foreman, a burly Texan in a cowboy hat, had been a reluctant Trump man when I first encountered him at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. In recent days, those doubts have redoubled. On TV, he’d seen reports of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin “This debate is critical,” he said. “If the language in this video is as bad as it seems, then how Trump handles himself is more important than ever. It could be make or break.” The crisis now facing the Like that of Mr. Berlusconi, Mr. Trump’s unlikely rise is the product of years of unresolved political contradictions. What started with the ultraconservative Now the party faces the prospect of a severe drubbing in the November election, not just for the disavowed Mr. Trump, but also for its candidates in congressional elections. Can Mr. Trump use Sunday’s debate to turn his fortunes around? He has beaten the odds many times, and a Whatever happens to Mr. Trump’s candidacy, the more lasting question may be what becomes of the cheering crowds drawn to his populist brand. Already on Saturday, at events in Wisconsin and Nevada, they openly jeered Republican leaders who had criticized Mr. Trump. As experience in other countries has shown, the populist genie, once out of the bottle, can take a long time to put back in.