I've been trying to figure out why so many people would become so invested in the task of gratifying the hyperinflated ego of this monomaniacal sociopath. I admit that I am still stumped.

The only thing that comes to mind is that he plays a kind of cathartic function, allowing them to express--through their support for him--all of the unsavoury thoughts, biases, and dissatisfaction that they are either not allowed to express directly (as they would fall under the categories of xenophobia, racism, homophobia, etc.) or because they don't know how to express them. That is, they aren't really all that certain about what it is that they are angry and dissatisfied about, they just know that they are dissatisfied and angry.

My theory is that many of these people see the gradual diminution of the privileged position of white anglo saxons in the US as disenfranchisement. That is, they interpret not being able to get their own way on absolutely everything as meaning that their rights are being violated. Which would be true if you consider "getting your own way on everything" to be a constitutional right. Alas for them, it's not.

At the same time, I'm not sure how much of this indignation is genuine and how much of it is the product of the alt-right machinery. Talk radio, news sites and blogs that are more fiction than fact, bizarre conspiracy theorists and, of course, the donald himself have for the past 9 years or so been doggedly trying to persuade everyone that they are miserable, that everything is falling apart and that an apocalypse looms.

Is there no point at which these crowds of people will realise that they are being played for fools? That easy answers to complex problems are hardly ever right? That you really can't have your cake and eat it too? I thought that the tape, followed up by revelations that numerous women have been subjected to precisely the kind of acts he brags about would make the facade crumble but... apparently not.

I have for many years jokingly said that the republicans have been weakening public education so as to maintain their voter base but I'm no longer certain that this is a joke... I'm starting to believe that this is their actual strategy. After all, it requires considerable ignorance to continue to swallow the mountains of horseshit put out by trump and the republicans on a daily basis...