The only way I can describe it is that he has such a desire - no, craving - for respect and admiration, and he is so attuned to the - for lack of a better term - ids of people around him.
And when he uses those gifts to feed people what they want, some who hear him think “Well, he may not be telling the truth, but he is at least working hard to be on my side.” And for a depressingly large number of people, that seems to be enough. And so he gets the attention that he mistakes for that respect and admiration, yet he like an addict craves even more, and there ends up being a horrid positive feedback effect that gets us to where we are right now.
I hope the fighters behind the scenes are working to go hard at herr miller. Magats are all repugnant but he’s especially vile because he sincerely believes the shite he spews. His wife seems like a real nut bag too, so I welcome seeing her undoing almost as much.
The current criminal regime & the adjacent MAGAt-sphere influencers such as Bannon broadly consist of two groups. I’ll call them the clowns and the operators.
The clowns, of which trump is #1, are there to rile up and entertain the masses. They’re evil, but mostly in intent, not in capability.
The operators are the guys mostly behind the scenes, although miller is one, who are systematically installing Project 2025 fascism while the clowns distract the rubes, the conventional political apparatus, and the mainstream media.
Bannon is a clown, and one of the more dangerous ones. The people we really need to stop though, are the operators.
Trump has charisma the way an ugly person is attractive.
I’ve seen so many celebrities described as handsome, sexy, beautiful, that I think are plain at best if not just ugly.
The reason is because it’s subjective. I don’t get it but others do. The same goes for Trump and charisma. You don’t find him charismatic because you’re not susceptible. But millions of others are.
One clue is the many DT fans who embraced the message “DADDY’S HOME” on his 2024 election. There was lots of supplemental crowing about how now the Libruls would be Getting Theirs, etc.
In other words: some proportion of humanity is pro-authoritarian. They crave the All-Father* who will take care of them, make their decisions, and pat them on the head with approval when they are obedient.
The fact that Donald is about the furthest thing possible from being an All-Father----he’s more of an All-Toddler----is irrelevant, because those fans have bought the image. And the image is of the Guy In Charge.
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*The mere fact that humans have come up with a term like “All-Father” pretty much tells you that a chunk of the species never wants to grow up, but instead hopes to be taken care of for life.
That’s part of it, sure. But lots of people have tried to tap into that authoritarian energy, and the vast majority of them never manage to use it to get elected President. There’s something about Trump that makes him really good at tapping into that.
That’s funny—but it might also be true. Researchers into authoritarianism have speculated that there’s a genetic component. For example, here’s one study (not paywalled) –