Back in the ’80s, I used to watch or listen to Ronald Reagan’s addresses when I could stomach them and think, Why would anyone take seriously this cornball shtick? Bad enough what he was usually saying–the overdone, cloying manner and delivery should have generated more skepticism than it did.
Of course it turned out that not as many Americans believed it as the GOP and “mainstream” media told us that we did. Nevertheless, the dum-dum Dems decided their only option was to turn into wannabe Republicans. When Clinton was elected I assumed that he would provide a corrective to Reagan/Bush. Instead we had a doubling down.
With Trump, I wonder if his garish appearance and the fact that he is transparently a con man, making it up second-by-second, arouse some sort of pleasurable contempt on the at- least-subliminal part of even his enthusiasts. He is visibly desperate: desperately insecure, desperately fake. He is the quintessential snake oil salesman plagued by job insecurity.