A lot of authoritarian countries label themselves as governments of the people and their figurehead as a brave warrior leading a permanent revolution against the ruling class.
Even when their figurehead has held onto power for several decades and executes 12 year olds who write "this gov sux LOL" on a bathroom wall for being a dissident, they keep claiming to be leading an uphill fight against some mysterious power above and half the country keeps loving them.
People love an underdog story. Frame yourself as a permanent underdog, even when you're not, and half of nearly any given country will love you. America now has people with hundreds of billions of dollars claiming to be oppressed underdogs. It should be insane. But people believe it. They'll believe it 20 years from now, too.
I distinctly remember listening to Limbaugh make fun of Trump while riding in a truck with my dad in the late ‘90s. Most of my image of the guy up until his run in 2016 actually came from people making fun of what an awful person and terrible businessman he was, and I probably heard more of that from conservatives than liberals, even. Like, he’s obviously a clown with sleazy used car salesman energy. Everybody knew, of course, because it’s so easy to see, and nobody denied it, it was assumed fact any time anyone talked about the guy.
Fast forward a couple decades and he’s god-king of the right. My dad, who also personally told me things about what a shitty person Trump was, back then, loves the guy and thinks he’s good at everything.
