Not surprised. The Harris campaign ran on the status quo, which many people are dissatisfied with, and pivoted to the right on various policy, when the people who like right-wing policies already have a party catering just to them - and that can come at the cost of alienating their own base or fracturing the coalition. For instance, many Latinos trend conservative in their values, but they voted Dem in the past because of all the “Build the wall” stuff. But then the Democrats said, “Trump’s just using it to posture, we’re the ones who are actually going to build the wall,” and they lost a bunch of Latinos and didn’t win over Republicans.
Promoting the Dick Cheney endorsement was an obvious unforced error, not even Republicans like him. Honestly a lot of their attempts to “reach across the aisle” seem more like patting themselves on the back for being “reasonable” than genuine attempts to understand and appeal to actual human beings. Like, generally, I think it’s a better strategy to accept that most of them are unreachable and focus on mobilizing your base, but if you are going to commit to that approach and make it the whole backbone of your campaign, then you actually have to understand who you’re trying to reach and how they think and why they do the things they do. Like, there are genuine ideological rifts on the right that are exploitable, like nationalism vs libertarianism, but Cheney and Bush tried to do something that both sides of that hate and it was a colossal failure, so bringing him on board just papers over those disagreements and makes it easier for them to consolidate around Trump.
A major problem that liberals have is that they’re attached to this idea of “reasonableness” where the best ideas will just naturally win out in the marketplace of ideas, and when the world doesn’t actually work like that they just can’t accept it. The right isn’t reasonable, they are (at least sometimes) proud of not being reasonable, because reason is the tool of the educated elite. And that actually almost makes a weird kind of sense, it’s like, imagine arguing that the earth is flat against a five year old - you could probably “win,” right? You have way more information in your repertoire and more experience with debate than they do, so you could selectively pick-and-choose things to support your point. So imagine being that five year old, having the sense that the adult is taking you for a ride, but knowing that you can’t debate or reason well enough to win on their terms. That’s the kind of psychology that we’re dealing with.
There are three ways you can respond to that situation. Either you say, “OK, these people are crazy and unreachable, let’s focus on mobilizing our own base,” or you say, “OK, we can work with that, we just have to go beyond reason and try to build trust or reach them on an emotional level,” (good luck with that, since that emotional level includes absolutely despising establishment career politicians, along with a substantial number of people who make up the dem coalition), or, lastly, you can keep trying to reason with them, and you will lose. Like, you could legitimate run a candidate who policy-wise is to the right of the Republican candidate on every issue and right-wingers still wouldn’t vote for them if they looked and sounded like a typical Democrat. You just have to wrap your head around that concept.
Given that Trump constantly does things that should screw himself over, and then he trips on a rock and somehow it’s fine. I think it comes down to two things: Trump is a very skilled con man (his one tangible skill) with unbelievable luck, and America is chock full of idiots. I really believe now that he could literally shoot someone on 6th Avenue in front of network television and get away with it.
It’s not that simple. Sure, he’s conning people, but it’s not because he’s particularly clever or skilled. He’s simply offering them an image that’s different from the establishment Democrats (and establishment Republicans, for that matter) who they despise. Of course, the right-wing propaganda machine plays a role, but the people themselves do a lot of the work towards inventing explanations for how he’s on their side. They believe in him because they want to believe in him, and they want to believe in him because he presents himself as an alternative to a failing system.
You’re absolutely right that he’s offering people the image they’re looking for. But speaking as someone with a few years training and experience in stage acting - nothing bigtime but legit, I’m not talking high school play - Trump has always been generally quite a good performer. He’s been called a “consummate liar” but it’s the same thing. He understands nuances of character and uses them consistently - a set of voices, facial expressions, head tilts, etc, that communicate sincerity. One of his bits is a straightforward tone that exudes honesty and gets people to remember stuff. He’ll say like, “Listen to me now…” and then repeat something he just said in this very “I’m leveling with you” tone. Sometimes he pauses to let it sink in and then repeats it again. Very effective way to get people to believe and remember a message. He has all kinds of little tricks to sound more believable to people who already want to believe him.
To me it all looks like well practiced technique but there’s probably also some natural talent. I bet he was super good at lying to his parents as a kid. His skillset is actually pretty rare, and is a hallmark of a really effective salesman (or actor). His other talent, which is really the con man part, is picking the right audience. On some level he does understand them and how to push their buttons. With a vastly different character he could have been a fantastic therapist - although the rapist part probably would have ruined that.