The answer to how Trump has succeeded is really simple: He lies nonstop, and lying works. Sure, there are other factors in play—he tapped into and intensified a certain strain of profound proletarian resentment of liberal elites, and … well, that’s about it. But mostly, it’s the lies.
…And, to reiterate, Trump tells many such lies a day. He talks to the press two or three times a day most days, which probably adds up to what, 45 minutes, an hour? Spitballing it at one lie every two minutes, which may well be low, that’s around 25 factual lies a day.
He was also doing his shit even back in high-school when he tried to make every failure look like a success, and when he was still working closely for his dad in the 70s some newspapers even mocked him for promising the moon but delivering a moonpie. They noted his tendency to exaggerate everything he did as the best and biggest even when it plain to see that it was not.
I, for one, am shocked - SHOCKED - that the guy who spent his entire life lying all the time about everything has proven to be somewhat untrustworthy.
I didn’t know who Trump was until around 2010 or so when I saw interviews with him online (no I didnt watch the Apprentice nor did I even know the show existed until much longer. Also while I did watch Home Alone 2 as a kid his cameo in the film went completely over my head. As far as I knew at the time Kevin just asked a completely random New Yorker where the lobby was), and I heard him mention his tariff plan and all that shit even back then.
But then I started reading articles written about him and his sorded history and I pretty much came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t trust this person with a single dollar, let alone a company or a country.
Even cracked.com that had many articles (and I still am unable to find most of them) detailing how full of shit the man was, the comments sections were nearly universal in agreement as to what a worthless man he was. This is rare since comments sections are often toxic shitpiles, but that was the exception.
The Apprentice alone is not enough to explain his continued existence outside a jail cell, even if it is a big part of it.