"......the general population and their need for validation.”?

Need for validation? I don't understand. What do we need validated?

different from them, and he sticks it to the libtards.

The guy's a hot mess and he keeps looking in the mirror and saying "you're GOOD enough, you're SMART enough, and gosh darn, people LIKE you."

And, of course, not one word of that it true.

But it DOES PROVIDE TRUMP with a very convenient point of entry to their wallets.

Economically, some people need validation that they and their lack of marketable skills in a changing economy aren't the problem. It's those pesky brown people, women, "DEI hires" getting ahead of them.

Fundigelicals need validation that they're still the source of all things moral and should be driving our culture, not pushed aside as an anachronism in a rapidly secularizing world.

Many men seem to need validation that their longing for traditional male leadership roles in their families aren't also anachronistic. Being an equal partner is apparently scary for them. For the life of me I don't know why, and I'm a 60+ male.

And on and on....

Trump validates those needs. Makes them feel that they're OK, even if some of those needs are rather fucked up in the 21st century. Gives them a tribe to belong to. Tells them that they're right and society's direction can and should be changed. "You're not being left behind. YOU were right all along. It's society that's wrong."

See how that might play in their minds? He's a master manipulator and doesn't even realize he's doing it most of the time. A real life Elmer Gantry.

I think this is exactly right.

Trumpty Dumpty is NOT a smart man.

And his lizard-brain instincts are supercharged by sheer, unadulterated shamelessness

...and from what I have gathered, the shamelessness was taught to him as a survival tool, one that works because as long as he doesn't have to admit he did anything wrong, offer an apology, or adjust his behavior, he has the illusion of strength and power, and he fends off attacks. He also has backers who will parrot what he says/posts.

or a gold-painted Hitler imitation.

it is all about having a tribe and somewhere to belong. The direction of the larger culture as it has moved towards greater inclusion has pulled the rug out from under those whose only advantage in their own eyes is their whiteness. They know, deep down, that they have nothing else. They are poor, they are uneducated, they lack social skills and connections, but "at least they are white" in their own estimations.
Having what they see as a "racial advantage" is all they have left in today's world, where most people welcome diversity and inclusion of those previously marginalized. MAGA gives them a place to vent their frustration by hating on those they believe are less-than.

What they don't realize is that they hate themselves, and DJT hates everyone, including himself.

Trump validates the racism of his base. Trump and those around took LBJ's wisdom to heart: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

You laid it out clearly, and in the fewest possible words. Brevity wins every time.

Whereas before the 1970's, there was generally someplace for them to land - if they worked hard enough - where their lives were considered comfortable for their time, where they could potentially buy a bit of land, or a car, or a home. The last time a working class family could even think about taking an annual two week road trip vacation to a National park or other tourist destination was probably before Reagan neutered the Unions and S&L crisis finally broke the back of working class home ownership and small local business employers.
Not to mention the practice of flattening service wages so that what used to be a living wage, like clerk (which includes cashier, secretary, or reception desk), janitor/maintenance, warehouse, drivers, is now considered an "entry level job" or scut work jobs for brain dead slackers who couldn't go to an Ivy league or has the proper class social network to get a "good job ". Technical or Skilled Trades jobs are "as needed". Part time, hurry up and wait jobs that anyone with a minimum of training and common sense can do.
Average jobs are disposable jobs. 50% of them can theoretically be replaced by automation and AI over the next ten years.
As I point this out, I am reminded that for Minorities in the US, this has been the default attitude of the Ownership class towards their employability status, whether or not they are doing important work, or had the genius, or got the education and experience to be able to make innovations and increase productivity (i.e., profit).
Now the "Real 'Murican" whose parents and grandparents lived respectable, comfortable lives where they could work for a "reasonable" business owner and still save up generational wealth for their time periods is facing the same roadblocks Minorities have faced in an increasingly compressed Living Wage labor market.
So these previously privileged adults are looking for someone to validate their upset over not being able to live the lives their childhood showed them could be possible, when they didn't see the financial stress or fear of job loss.
When a family could buy a comfortable home on a 10 - 15 year mortgage on a teacher's, janitor, mechanic's or senior clerk's job. When lower level managers and sales folk on commission - like a grocery or department store section manager - could make enough to buy a car and maintain a mortgage, and still save up to put a kid through college.

Those average jobs are fewer, and they pay the living wage equivalent of half what they did in the 1980's. It's like Childhood Nostalgia has been betrayed. So MAGA, along with Q-anon and modern Middle Class Conservatism in general, is looking for someone to blame as the floor that the Minorities used to hold up below them starts losing large pieces.
They're just either too lazy or too afraid to look "up" to see who's actually removing the floor under them.

Is their shittiness, their inadequacies, their racism, they’re overall need to feel like they’re important even though they haven’t done the work.

who you are; you get the validation you need from within; you are able to love yourself as you are even while recognizing you are not perfect.

That's my take anyway.

There are a lot of damaged people out there who need and seek validation from others whether consciously or not (unconsciously).

Very nice reply, thank you. Makes sense.

…to make them feel smart, and racist enough to make them feel good about themselves.

…and maga is his stable.

They see him as a rallying point; an anchor that keeps them steady in the hate filled world he helps them construct.
In this world of false reality, they are his brain dead zombies. He tells them what to think, what to say, what to do, how to feel, how to act, and exactly who to hate.

The weakness of the general population is a direct result of and plan of a dictator.

Funny, every time I look at the group of women surrounding him, doting over him, I think the same thing about all of them.....BangBang Boebert, Bimbo Bondi, Krusty Noem, etc etc.

The major difference between every single one of them, and a street walker coke whore is:
The coke whores have things they WON'T DO, for ANY amount of money, the group of the women surrounding Trump, have NOTHING they won't do for money......

Examples......Rubio, Little Lindsey Graham, etc....

Lindsey Graham.....

In relation to the ignorant and talentless blob of fungi that currently inhabits ...

If Trump 'fills a need' somewhere in the population - it comes about by pure accident - and certainly NOT through some sort of 'genius' marketing or strategy. The man simply is not that bright. (and would be three times as effective if he were). But the flat slob just wanders around doing 'the flat slob' - and in the process, oftentimes sh*ting in his own corner. Brilliant!

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He's no genius. He's just relentless, unprincipled and needy. There were richer and more successful business people in the 80s that could have used their money to become pop icons, but it wasn't their thing. He just put the work in to get the attention he felt he needed, lying, bragging, and cheating people to get there.

And we've all been saying that it's a cult. It's not a joke at all.

What makes it atypical from other cults is that there was little recruitment required. They began as fans of Limbaugh who did all the groundwork. Politically, they highjacked the teabagger movement where Sarah Palin flashed in the pan and then they migrated to trump with his Obama Obsession, making them birthers and eventual magas.

But no one needed to take away what they wanted most (as in the Shield example). The validation itself has been the narcotic and it keeps them hooked. So far.

Women look at the dynamics if you have an abusive relationship....and think

promoting you plus you know what the base loves to hear

And I think he's right.