The evil genius of the right was to turn ordinary boring policy-based politics into a combo of reality TV show hero worship and tribal sports team allegiance.
One hell of a lot of people watch the talking heads on ESPN for hours a day and wear football team regalia regularly than ever attend games in person, or toss a ball in a park themselves.
Applying that same thinking to party politics was genius. sheer f***ing genuis. Same as the 9/11 hijacking crashes.
With the result that now, one hell of a lot of people watch the talking heads on Faux et al for hours a day and wear political team regalia regularly than ever attend political events in person, or think about public policy themselves.
Folks wearing trump merch are as much signaling to one another as they are signaling to the rest of the world. With a side order of: Since their team is founded on belligerence and bullying as central tenets, they do get a little extra frisson of fun out of waving their merch in front of people from the other team.
All that emotional energy is simply lacking from decent people trying to live a decent life in a decent country not riven by angry know-nothingism. And that emotional deficit is rapidly turning into (or already has) an insurmountable electoral problem.