Tbf, I also can’t grasp the “mystery of Trump’s appeal”.
I mean, I know his voters range from fascists to people ok with fascism (also known as fascists).
So I know they want a strong leader. I still don’t understand what’s appealing about THIS strong leader (or what’s strong about him, for that matter).
Oh, I can answer that…
Columnist Ross Douthat took issue with that approach. Arguing that “the patterns for Covid-19 fatalities often look more region-specific than country-specific,” he compared the US to a slew of countries in the Western Hemisphere, particularly in Latin America and parts of Europe. By that toll, the US doesn’t seem to do so badly, with a death rate close to that of Brazil, France, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
But Douthat’s list, despite calling for a regional comparison, doesn’t include Canada, arguably the country most similar to the US in the Western Hemisphere and one that’s done a much better job fighting the coronavirus than the US.
There are two important things to understand. His appeal is because of bigotry, and thus it doesn’t matter. The people he’s won over will never vote for a decent candidate
What matters is buttressing the foundations of democracy so that the minority of the population who votes (R) can never take power. They are about 25% of the eligible voters and shrinking, and the true MAGAts are even less.
Ross Douthat is hilariously wrong about absolutely everything. In other news, the sun rose in the east this morning, water remains wet, and El Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
Yeah, I get that. I just don’t get why it’s him they chose, rather than one of the other deplorables, who at least know how to string a sentence together or wear a suit.
name recognition probably. i remember a joke on the golden girls about him, he’s been around so long
In a crowd of awful bigots, Donald Trump managed to be in every way the candidate with the least abilities, the least redeeming features, and the least standards. I have to assume that’s not a coincidence, and that was his appeal. They wanted the worst to excuse it in everyone else maybe.
… they like him because he violates all the norms, while still scapegoating all the right scapegoats
Also he knows how to work a crowd
I’m not sure where he picked that up, other than on “The Apprentice” 
Because he said the vile shit he wanted to hear, and did the vile shit they wanted him to do while in office (or tried to, in some cases).
Working a casino crowd as MC was probably easy practice.
He capitalizes on the longstanding conservative canard that an elitist deep state is destroying the country, and decent (reads as white) Americans especially are the deep state’s target. And those self-proclaimed real Americans believe Trump’s claims that because he’s fighting for them, he’s the deep state’s biggest target/victim.
He also capitalizes on another canard-- that educated, “slick-talking” experts are destroying etc. etc. In contrast to what experts and other “liberal elites” say, Trump’s crude bombast and insults come across to them as honest straight talk. (Related to your No. 1.)
Won’t somebody think of the inflexible (and unprepared) journalists who are so used to repeating themselves that they can’t manage to provide an accurate account of events? 
Too many work for companies that don’t see any benefit to changing what they are doing. Promoting infotainment, avoiding unprofitable truths (as well as references to scary terms or concepts), and casting the opinions of influencers as news seems to be their priority now.
Nonprofit doesn’t mean non-partisan, so even those organizations should be checked for donors as well as for bias in their coverage and/or reports. However, their political journalists tend to be less “stubborn” and derivative in their framing:
A guest essay? My bad! I thought they were stating their editorial policy.
