He doesn’t start from a premise “I got crowds” and reason to a conclusion “I won”. He starts with the belief “I won” and looks for any crumb of evidence to support it.
He is simply a narcissist. He believes that he is a genius. He believes that his genius is obvious to everyone. He believes that he is popular and beloved. Every criticism levelled against him is a deliberate lie by people who secretly know that he is right. He believes this, not because of his rally crowd, but because he he needs to believe it. He would still believe it if he got a crowd of 50 people.
He doesn’t comprehend that his opponent took the pandemic seriously and he didn’t. We’ll never know how big Biden’s crowds would have been because he didn’t try to host superspreader events.
I suspect he also has a real problem with object permanence.
Several people who were on the inside have noted that Trump has a habit of basing his policies on who talked to him last. I suspect that’s because he honestly can’t remember things for very long.
This is also why he thinks his “huge” rallies are so important. He sees so many people in front of him, packed closely together, some part of his brain just concludes that “This is all the people in the world!!!” In the moment, he just flat out forgets that there are literally billions of other people out there who aren’t at his rally.
But they’re the fifty bestest people! If they weren’t the wouldn’t have been there to see him and all those others who didn’t are just too stupid to see what’s in front of their faces.
Has he ever actually taken a good look at kind of weirdos his rallies attract? He’s not preaching to the choir, he’s preaching to the freakshow. And just look at the people behind him as he rants. They’re not paying any attention to him at all, they’re just happy to be part of the spectacle. They don’t react to his bullet points because they have no idea what he’s talking about. Morans.
I can’t fault Biden for the crowds any more than I fault FDR for the V-E crowds. People are going to celebrate the downfall of a despot, health consequences be damned.
The thing is “Biden couldn’t fill stadiums like this” kinda *is* true, and interesting to think about. Because to most of us, politics isn’t like Wrestlemania, and a guy standing up and just listing off sensible policies (while not being challenged by e.g. an interviewer) is almost entirely pointless.
Obama was a bit of an exception in that respect, being such a gifted orator that the speeches were as much philosophy and poetry as they were politics, all weaved together expertly.
With Trump…I’m gonna hope that nobody is stupid enough to consider his speeches philosophical and/or poetic. I think the appeal is more like…well, like I say, Wrestlemania. You show up to wave your banner and holler out your support. To the extent that the speech itself matters, Trump just needs to give a couple of shout outs to his tribe, and throw a few punches at the Dems.
I think more than a few MAGA supporters are regretting their allegiance to Der Fuehrer at this point, especially since January 6th, but are unable or unwilling to back away from the dumpster fire. They believe that no matter how crazy Donny is he is still far better than any leftist Democrat like Biden will ever be, and all Democrats are leftists Democrats apparently. There seem to be very few moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans left for people to be drawn to or be associated with.
At the risk of stating the blatantly obvious your comparisons to wrestlemania are distressingly accurate. I happen to be a long time pro-wrestling fan and Trump’s association with that business are well documented. To Trump everything is show business and he thinks reality is dictated by the script. If he beats his chest and brays like a jackass loud enough and positions himself as the star in the show nothing bad can possibly happen to him. The fact that he has to trample people below isn’t even a consideration as they’re just mid carders in the Trump show. It feeds naturally into his fascist and white supremacist tendencies.
Unlike most he doesn’t understand the show’s over when the camera’s get shut off
No I didn’t suggest you did but that was a spontaneous reaction to an historic event, sort of like the killing of binLaden, well beyond anyone’s influence or control.
People, (“people” meaning so called “moderates” in the country, everyone else has already picked a side as that’s all that’s left) need to figure out Trump doesn’t have “policies” in the traditional sense. He’s not a politician. He’s show business. Everything is about bending the narrative to his benefit. Out of jail. In power. The biggest gate as possible in his pocket. (Most money)
The fact that this is barely, if even, discernable from actual Republican policy over the last 20 years is not a bug. It’s a feature.