His appeal is the same appeal that takes each of us in at some point; he offers easy answers to complicated problems. It’s tempting to believe that only the profoundly stupid will fall for this, but when a problem is outside your knowledge or experience and someone confidently announces they have a solution its pretty easy to let yourself stop thinking any further.
Also, there are a ton of racists and xenophobes out there who already believe they have the easy answers and like the confirmation of having them parroted back at them.
His appeal is the same appeal that takes each of us in at some point; he offers easy answers to complicated problems.
This is the key. And yes we’ve all been there. But, normally you grow out of it once you pass teenage angst and college year insecurities.
You’d think so,but education and experience doesn’t really get rid of the underlying tendency so much as it inoculates you to it in specific areas of experience/expertise. Plenty of experts in their own field will look at a screw-up in another field they’re not familiar with and exclaim “just do/don’t do x, y,or z.” That’s why it’s such an insidious tendency, insight really only let’s you see how complicated certain things are while leaving the shroud of your own ignorance around everything else.
Think of a clerk having trouble with the register when you’re in a hurry to get home. You’re likely to think to yourself "come on! It’s your one job and it’s not that hard. But if you’re made to stop and think about it you realize there’s a whole litany of functions to remember for the different scenarios that come up, an encyclopedia of produce numbers to remember, company policies to be observed,and all sorts of smaller jobs to be done.
This isn’t to say that people willing to hurt others for an easy solution to their problems have an excuse. This is just to say that we would do well to remember that everyone is susceptible to the urge to oversimplify.
Edit: spelling
Definitely a major contributor, but it’s not just that. Trump is angry and that’s appealing because we’re all kinda angry too. A lot of us know that that anger is pointless right now and can only be used to make things worse, but it’s still kind of a good feeling to see that reflected in someone in a position of power. If Biden had half that intensity, he’d have this in the bag and we wouldn’t be talking about any of the other recent problems.
It tested really well with some key demographics.
Remember that feeling when, as a little kid, your parents said that you could eat all the candy you wanted, with no limits at all, and you were too fucking stupid to realize how bad that was for you? It’s like that.
It’s like that but it also seems like the kids are determined not to learn anything new.
Another big part is that he let’s you believe your failures aren’t your fault. Someone else sabotaged you, so you don’t have to commit the hard work of fixing yourself.
That and a media echo chamber of lies.
Turns out brainwashing people and telling them it’s “news” is a really effective strategy.
