Which is bizarre because he is just about the most dishonest person I can think of. I think when people say he 'says it like it is' they mean he 'says the horrible things we have been to afraid to say out loud.' Trump's appeal is to our most base instincts rather than our better angels. And that kind of thing really resonates with a certain type.
He speaks to those people
@Siro referenced, disaffected and angry at oligarchic rule. He speaks to those who are emotionally attached to a whiter past, and he speaks to ultra nationalists who can agree athletes who kneel belong in a different country. He speaks to those for whom multiculturalism is the death of a nation, an affront to a flag. Nationalism and isolationism, anti-science, anti-authority. He marshals anger better then anyone else, and the ugliness that comes with that anger. He's what we want our children to never be, the worst foot forward, turn our back on our friends, insult and demean, lie daily, and treat the rule of law itself as something to be trampled beneath his ego. Erode and vilify the institutions of our democracy in service to self preservation, in service to Self.
Right now, that means playing up Spygate and Deep State, and another paranoid infested conspiracy theory, to supplant the narrative that can see right through this farce, even as some remain firmly entranced with the man. Somehow. People voted him in, but it was a highjacking and seeds of a cult that is not about to go quietly into the night, come what may. Here's hoping our better angels can find redress and swing the pendulum back, away from the cliff. Leave it to sidekicks like Bolton, and it will be war. And Iran may be #1 on the hit parade despite North Korea occupying the present spotlight.
