Yes, what the president said after the death of Rob Reiner was totally reprehensible. Yes, it defied all notions of human decency. Yes it was an ugly act of pure, disgusting and malignant cruelty.
But there is a silver lining. Maybe this will do what all those other things may not have — the idiot ballroom, the punishing new taxes on Americans in the form of tariffs (good luck buying a house these days), the denial of affordable healthcare to millions of hard working American families.
You can hide a lot of snake oil behind a torch of tribal cohesion, but there are limits. The president is essentially saying here that he is a monster, and that he is openly proud of that. He is also implicitly asking his followers to be fellow monsters.
People will accept all sorts of cruelty and economic pain from their dear leader, if it lets them hold on to their sense of tribal identity. But many of those same people will balk at being asked to give up their very humanity.
If you ask people to give up their belief that they themselves are decent human beings, you just might lose a few million votes.