I agree, and once would have dismissed the sociopolitical pragmatism described by the commenter above as “lowering our discourse to their level” or something of the sort.

I eventually realized that this instinctive criticism was valid only if they were still growing as people, and capable of more than what they are now. The assumption is that setting higher expectations might convince them to “elevate their discourse” if only to save face.

But what I’ve come to realize is that this was far too much to expect. By all the evidence available to date, these folks never advanced far beyond the emotional maturity of the average middle schooler. At this level of maturity, superficial and public humiliation is quite literally the most serious attack, as it bloodies waters presumed to be infested with sharks.

Yes it’s pathetic, and yes “stooping to their level” feels gross, but Republican voters are only enthused by policies which benefit them directly or hurt others they feel deserve it. Perceived power matters a lot to them, and seems to be attached to explicit expressions of it that are similarly pathetic— as in, truck nuts, “I am very smart,” “I have a great brain and concepts of a plan,” etc.

So public humiliation of trump for an otherwise petty and irrelevant issue (especially by someone he can’t touch without losing a chunk of his base) absolutely succeeds in making him look weak, and making Trump look weak is directly correlated with his voters’ loss of motivation to vote (see RWA personality type/disorder; it’s fascinating).

Enough of these successful offensives will cause his most die-hard voters to lose faith in him (caveat: to seek out somebody stronger) so to de-motivate a current right-wing conservative voter, likely we must accept that petty “mean girl” tactics are the only language they understand, due to their arrested emotional development, and robbing them of their “strongman” is both easy and effective. Ridicule the emperor with no clothes and his voters, who are themselves unclothed, might go home and rethink their fashion statement.

TLDR: It sucks but crass pragmatism may be warranted in this case. The first language of Trump voters is small-mindedness, and it’s often the only one they understand, so we might consider rolling our sleeves up and speaking it if only so future generations don’t have to.

Edit: corrected swype errors.