To Trump's hard-core supporters, his rallies weren't politics. They were life.
Link to tweet
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-rallies-front-row-joes/2021/07/15/cd842ee6-e589-11eb-8aa5-5662858b696e_story.html
It was the third summer of Trump’s presidency, and the event had been billed as the official kickoff of his reelection campaign. What unfolded, however, was effectively the exact same rally I’d already covered at least 50 times since 2016 as a White House and political reporter for the Wall Street Journal. Traditionally, a campaign launch marks an inflection point for a candidate to frame the race, offering a new message or a second-term agenda. But the only differences that day in June 2019 were cosmetic: The sound system was louder, the physical stage grander. Timeworn chants of “Lock her up” and “Build the wall” rippled through the arena, with Trump supporters echoing their favorite lines like childhood friends at a sleepover watching their favorite movie for the umpteenth time.
Then it struck me. The deafening roars and vigorous choruses from the capacity crowd at the 20,000-seat Amway Arena showed that Trump’s supporters were excited to watch a rerun. They’d stood in line for hours or camped overnight — enduring stifling humidity interrupted only by brief bursts of hard, heavy rain — to ensure a spot inside. Now I was rattled. I had let the rallies, which formed the core of one of the most steadfast political movements in modern American history and reordered the Republican Party, turn stale and rote. Why was Trump’s performance still so fresh and resonant for an entire arena of fellow Americans? I spent the next year and a half embedded with a group of Trump’s most hardcore rallygoers — known as the “Front Row Joes” — to try to understand what I’d overlooked.
The answer wasn’t so much what I’d missed as what they had found. They were mostly older White men and women who lived paycheck to paycheck with plenty of time on their hands — retired or close to it, estranged from their families or otherwise without children — and Trump had, in a surprising way, made their lives richer. The president himself almost always spent the night in his own bed and kept few close friends. But his rallies gave the Joes a reason to travel the country, staying at one another’s homes, sharing hotel rooms and carpooling. Two had married — and later divorced — by Trump’s second year in office.
In Trump, they’d found someone whose endless thirst for a fight encouraged them to speak up for themselves, not just in politics but also in relationships and at work. His rallies turned arenas into modern-day tent revivals, where the preacher and the parishioners engaged in an adrenaline-fueled psychic cleansing brought on by chanting and cheering with 15,000 other like-minded loyalists. Saundra Kiczenski, a 56-year-old from Michigan, compared the energy at a Trump rally to the feelings she had as a teenager in 1980 watching the “Miracle on Ice” — when the U.S. Olympic hockey team unexpectedly beat the Soviet Union.
*snip*
= new reply since forum marked as read
AND hearing their quotes when they seem to go out of their way to prove that they ARE dunderheads........
I believe we REALLY, REALLY need to 'get to know them' and try to understand how they can be SO F'ing stupid - because there are at least 74 million of them that seemingly will be ready to follow him anywhere.
While I really have strong doubts that he'll even be alive in 2024 (chanting "MORE BIG MACS, MORE BIG MACS!" ), we need to make sure we are 'tending to the needs' of the citizens - doing what makes the USA the beacon of freedom and liberty.
As General Sun Tzu has been quoted (I know, the IRONY - quoting a CHINESE general!): "Know thy enemy and know yourself."
Their idea of compromise is "Our way or the highway." They can flip their position the day a Democrat is sworn in (see: DEFICIT SPENDING!).
However, we HAVE to know what they're thinking (as feeble as their efforts may be....) and work at ways to counter the negative BS that their "leaders" are feeding them.
Oh, and WE have to stay united (not counting Manchin and Sinema - can't count on them for anything!).
They have their own brand, their own slogans, their own identifiers. They have their own products that they use and those they wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. They don't live in the real world, only an imaginary one. And their festivals and spectacles are the only social interaction they get outside of a computer screen. 
Hitler didn't give a damn about people, only himself; same as Trump
Hitler didn't care about killing people, only cared about those that supported him (same as Trump)
Hitler cared only about ...winning.....that is all Trump cared about..
Trump obviously was in love with lies, and so was Hitler..
There is more, but that is enough....
.....very, very, very sad, but that is what they were looking for.
and they found him.. 
