Excerpt from National Review
By Jonah Goldberg
For a year now, I’ve heard a good number of friends, colleagues, peers, pundits and former-friends explain that Trump is catching on because of some Very Big Issues — and not just immigration and trade, but what those issues represent: culture, identity, the flaws of modern capitalism, etc etc.
RELATED: The World Is Upside Down: Hillary Embraces American Exceptionalism; Trump Rebukes It
I’ve always leaned more on a simpler explanation: Lots of people hate politicians and Washington and they like entertaining celebrities. When you can use the latter to flip the bird at the former, all’s the better. In some cases the appeal of an entertaining celebrity morphs into a kind of disturbing and objectively ridiculous personality cult, in other cases it serves as an invitation to marginal figures and movements to hop on board for a ride and claim the candidacy represents something it doesn’t. But in general, I think your typical Trump fan from the primaries onward simply feels personally connected and invested in him.