The thing that flabbergasted me about the last 7 years was how anybody could actually take what he says seriously.
I mean, look at the government and look at politics. It's all performative bullshit. Lobbyists work with politicians to secure votes for policies that benefit their company and their revenue stream, that's all politics is. Corporations buying off politicians to further corporate interests, and everyone is playing ball. Bernie is playing ball, DeSantis is playing ball, everyone. It's not about the virtue of the constitution or any sort of higher set of ideals and
everyone knows that. If they don't know that, they at least don't trust their government regardless of who's in power which is an unusually intelligent position to take, considering how retarded most of the population is. Point is, there's a general distrust of the government.
When someone came along and said
"Yeah, the system is corrupt, I know I've used it to my advantage. Fuck these people, they are monsters and we're going to clean it up" that was a very big thing, and he was probably going to secure the win too. Unprecedented shit, that hasn't happened since Kennedy. People are willing to overlook a LOT in that circumstance, much in the same way Obama secured his win on the premise of "The First Black President" despite the fact that almost all of his policies were a continuation of the Bush administration, which everyone hated.
People will take what they can get, if it's good enough. If they've gotta suck the proverbial dick to stick it to someone, they'll say "Suck on, brother."