What does Trump give his base?
Lots, imo.
First off, there's
them: someone else to blame.
The rest feeds off that, mostly.
Trump simplifies everything, eliminating the need for independent thinking. Just "believe him" as he repeatedly said during his campaign, makes things really easy and comfortable.
Imo, its harder to figure out why lying to his base doesn't lose followers, but my guess is, they think, even if he's a liar, he's
my liar, and they have a special connection with him, with a liberal dose of Robin Hood syndrome thrown in.
Remember McCain's Maverick pitch?
He toyed with it, but most of the time, he shied away from actually attacking institutions and gave credence to ideas like the common good that are both dangerous to big donors and suspect to populist/wannabe millionaire/criminals.
To boot, the fact that Trump has no principles other than himself seems to be just wildly appealing to people who feel held back by conventional moral principles like the golden rule.
