seems very much part of the idea that Trump is consciously a celebration of white mediocrity. “we can be shit and look like shit and still occupy the most powerful office in the world, and you, ordinary white mediocrity, can live vicariously through me.”

What is the whole “Forgotten Man” shtick if not that exact play?

A fast-food chugging, chest-pounding, baldness-denying blowhard.

yeah this makes a lot of sense - i was always kind of taken aback at how slovenly and disheveled the whole movement looked and felt from the jump. was insulting in and of itself. but it makes sense when you align it with americans who generally look like shit in public (older suburban whites)

it is part of their design theme too. the trump/pence logo was brutalist and ugly, it looked like a sophomore in college with bad taste design project as an example.

Michael Rogin's line on Ronald Reagan: a B actor who said he was a family man but had been divorced, who said he was Christian but never went to church... these weren't turn offs to many of his voters...

You got a bunch of middle class white dudes who look like shit in their suits because they think caring about clothes or how they fit is gay, but still embarrassed because everyone thinks they look like shit.

I remember thinking, when the former president was gaining in the primaries, that a Black woman who conducted herself as he did could not get elected as a small-town dog catcher, let alone secure a major party's presidential nomination.

Reminds me of the "C student" can become president shtick.

"Be about 1/2 of what you can be, and that'll be more than enough."

I used to think the line “he’s an X man’s idea of a ~X man” was a dig, but I think actually that he got there first and it’s actually part of his appeal, as you note.