No other cult leader in history had the entire power of right media and the support of the country’s most powerful profiteers behind him. Trump himself doesn’t look all that smart, it’s just that everything he says or does goes through their filter and then reeks of roses for his followers.
While I generally agree that he doesn't look all that smart in the traditional sense, during the early part of his first election I don't think he had the full power of right wing media behind him. He is _excellent_ at something, and I think demagoguery might be a reasonable term for it. He seems to me to be very good at saying things that make people feel "activated" (to quote dang above). It is almost like the way he speaks is the human manifestation of the engagement algorithm that it took Facebook years and years to develop. It is really quite something.
It's simple: he's famous. He isn't even the first public personality the US voted.
The (sadly) most important thing for a campaign is charisma, and people from decades prior (AKA the ones that actually vote) see Trump and think of the times with The Apprentice, or any variety of commercials he's been in, or some talk show he was on. That mixed with an increasing distrust of the establshment and you get Trump 45.
Trump 47, similar vibes + the "I was richer under Trump" mentality. These are short-sighted, but common sentiments.
That very well may be all this is, I wasn't alive for the last famous president. I suppose folks feelings about him do feel similar to the other types of celebrity infatuation. I've never really understood the way people relate to famous people, I wonder if it is escapism, an inhuman place to project the idealized good or evil they imagine exists but that they never find in people who they actually know.
Preaching to the choir here. I'm that nerd who could go off on all the themes, dyanmics, and philosophies of The Matrix, and then 15 years later hear "Keaneu Reeves as John Wick" and have a blank face. I've never been particularly good at naming celebrities.
But I'd be unsurprised if I was ever diagnosed as neurodivergent, and apparently people find other people's lives engaging or even "relatable". Not that I never had my share of famous people I liked hearing about. It's just that I more resonate with their actions and works than their day-to-day lives.
