I keep getting this feeling that Trump is a symptom of self-loathing, on a large scale.
The people who vote for him don’t actually care to make the world a better place, they don’t care about the destructive policies that will come from his administration, they don’t even really care what Trump actually does. It’s more that they feel an unconscious emotional kinship with a man who hates himself so much that he has to spend every waking moment getting other people to tell him how great he is.
I think there’s a few core reasons
Some people would act like him if given the opportunity, so they identify with him or think he’d give them opportunities
Some people just feel isolated and know the world is getting worse but not why, so they latch onto the guy giving easy answers and simple solutions
And some people are just drawn to the idea of fascism or authoritarianism, even if they don’t realize what that entails
I’d put the self loathing in the first camp - many of them get through life through projection. They think everyone is like them