THE TRUMP MYSTIQUE – QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 9:58 A.M. ET:  You can dislike him, as I do, and yet follow his every move, fascinated by a man who is a presumptive presidential nominee, and yet a man who has broken every rule.  Will Rahn, at  CBS News,  has an excellent analysis of the appeal of Donald Trump, one of the best I've read:     

There are plenty of factors that went into Trump becoming the presumptive GOP nominee, and the incessant media coverage of his every utterance and movement probably contributed to his sky-high negatives. But it's unserious, not to mention smug, to assume that Trump has been playing all of his Republican supporters for dupes. You don't need to worship Trump to vote for him. You don't even have to like him, or think he's always honest, because these are not the factors at the heart of Trump's appeal.

Consider this from Michael Cooper, a writer, attorney, and liberal Democrat who lives in rural North Carolina. "My Republican friends are for Trump. My state representative is for Trump," he wrote in U.S. News in March. "People who haven't voted in years are for Trump. He'll win the primary here on March 15 and he will carry this county in the general.

His supporters realize he's a joke. They do not care. They know he's authoritarian, nationalist, almost un-American, and they love him anyway, because he disrupts a broken political process and beats establishment candidates who've long ignored their interests."

This, I think, nicely sums up the core of Trump's support. Yes, there is a cult of personality around the candidate, and some of his backers do seem to think of him as a man who can do no wrong. But the breadth of Trump's support alone indicates that we're dealing with more than just full-fledged #TrumpTrain devotees. We're also dealing with the people Cooper writes about, the ones who aren't so enthralled with the man himself but recognize him as a change agent.

And the truth is that a President Trump would, of course, be a change agent. A Hillary win would likely take us to something like the pre-Trump status quo ante, which is one reason why so many D.C. and Wall Street Republicans will wind up supporting her -- they'll still know how to play the game in a second Clinton presidency.

COMMENT:  Well stated.  Very often people who are angry will overlook defects in the candidates they support because they have an overriding objective – changing the system, even smashing it to the ground.  I'm not saying this is healthy, but I think it explains why a clearly flawed man like Trump is getting so much traction.

May 16, 2016