Why Do People Believe in Trump?

 What is Trump's appeal? That's always puzzled me. For some reason, I was able to see through the guy early. I never had a high opinion, but he was always easy to avoid. He was a phony, a greedy con-artist, who had absolutely no skills, and whose lifetime super-ability appeared to be making massive amounts of money disappear. One was lying, another was teaching his base how to lie with, for, and about him.

Trump is going to make whole academic careers. Social psychologists will write their theses on him and the hold that he has on 40% of Americans. Psychopathologists are going to be studying his voluminous Tweets to understand clinical narcissism and socio-pathology. 

Perhaps the most interesting and frightening thing about him was how swiftly he got a faithful following. It was as though I woke up one day in April 2016 and discovered that 40% of Americans had converted to Scientology overnight and L. Ron Hubbard had resurrected to assume leadership.  

Most Republicans still believe Trump, but why wouldn't GOP senators vote to bar him office? A lot of it was that they unemployment more than death itself. Yet, that's not really different from most people.

I have noted before how much Trump swore by vengeance. For anyone who slighted him in the least, Trump would try to destroy them, even in the pettiest ways. Even following the law is no excuse to Trump, as the hit he took out on Mike Pence illustrates. Now, it might be true that other presidents like Lyndon Johnson would get revenge, but never to the point of completely destroying enemies, and he would also forgive people. Trump would have none of that.  

No, it's no coincidence that authoritarians are extremely vengeful people. Putin's the best example. His enemies keep getting poisoned. Fact is, name any dictator/authoritarian and you will find they're all remarkably vindictive. In the underworld, vengeance is a consistent principle.

I believe that Trump's vindictiveness is the key to his rise to success as a demagogue. 

 

A reputation of vindictiveness is an intimidating quality. Trump with his low rasping voice, somehow off-key even in speech, sounding like he's suffering GERD/reflux. It drips with threat and harshness. You could tell he's a bully.

One fictional character who's also vengeful is Yahweh-God, and Allah. In fact, in our culture, we're trained to submit to a vindictive God, and his evangelical base is groomed to fear Hell.

Therefore, I think people sense Trump's constant implied threat and respond to it the same way they respond to fear of Hell. With both, they try to make themselves look virtuous by calling their fear "respect" or even joy. Some deny it to the point that they will literally see him as Godlike, or at least one of Cloudbeard's messengers and prophets.  It's the real reasons evangelicals respond to it: they're already groomed to follow a bully God, and to fear his wrath. It's an emotional, and not a rational or reasoned out influence.

And they fear Trump's followers, who will believe him and serve his every wish. They will keep themselves in denial about how they also fear him, and they'll spin their fear as patriotism. What's more, they'll act as checks on each others' doubts.

Outside the Marvel universe, which is about as unaware of real-world power as fiction can get, a person's power is defined by how many people will follow his wishes, with modifiers for how long they'll follow it, to what difficulty, against at what risk, and how immoral they're willing to be for their master. It doesn't matter how the person does it: through economic power (money, salaries, retainers), through sheer threat and force, political power, bullying, or even just through gentle persuasion. People have social tendencies. They try to form up into groups against other people they fear.  

What's so amazing about Trump is how deeply in denial they bury doubts about him. The most harmful thing about Trump is that he's taught his followers to lie with him, for him, and about him. Once a politician accomplishes that, he need only golf and enjoy his dictatorship. His followers will lie to each other, blinding each other to his every failing and flaw, spinning his defeats into victories. This is why GOP senators are supporting him.

Trump isn't like authoritarians we see in fiction. He's not a criminal mastermind. He had some good instincts about power, but it came from a background of having power handed, and being allowed to bully people with it. He never quite had the grasp of political power, especially in a democracy like the US. I believe he always thought the presidency was a dictatorship and couldn't understand why other presidents were always so restrained. As a sociopath, he could only see that restraint as weakness. His narcissism makes him believe that everyone thinks just like him, only they're weak and dumb.

He honestly thought Clinton, Biden and whoever stood in his way were guilty of something because he was. He believed all he had to do was focus people's attention on it, and their crimes would become plain. No coincidence this is exactly how the GOP acted about Hillary Clinton. No matter how many times she was proved not guilty, the GOP base became more convinced of her wrongdoing. The fact that they didn't find any simply meant that she was also a criminal mastermind.    

Trump definitely wasn't one. He wasn't intelligent: i.e. he sent a confession of his Ukraine caper to Nancy Pelosi, and was then stunned that he was immediately impeached. He was a liar, but he had no subtlety or guile. You could see his insurrection coming months away. His influence over his followers is still great, but his power is mortally wounded.

Once people begin to realize that his power to take revenge is in eclipse, his people will grow distracted and doubtful. Give it six months to a year, and ambitious politician like Cruz or Hawley will begin to pick apart his following.

Unfortunately, those two have learned from Trump, and they're much more intelligent. If Republicans win the next presidential election, it'll be the last election. A marginal win in one election won't get the US out of this crisis. The Dems must win the next three elections, by higher and higher margins.