No, regular people fell for it too.
My take:
Back when it started in late 2017, the Trump base was getting anxious. He wasn’t locking her up, draining the swamp, or building the wall at the time. People WANTED to believe these things were really going on and that made them vulnerable to grifters. You either live in the painful cognitive dissonance of voting for a candidate who is not following through on his signature promises, OR you take the Hopium and feel better.
So it’s more like an addictive drug
“Back when it started in late 2017, the Trump base was getting anxious. He wasn’t locking her up, draining the swamp, or building the wall at the time. People WANTED to believe these things were really going on and that made them vulnerable to grifters. You either live in the painful cognitive dissonance of voting for a candidate who is not following through on his signature promises, OR you take the Hopium and feel better.”
Yup. Trump was struggling from day 1. But some people wanted to believe that all the defeats and setbacks were actually part of some amazing 4D chess plan.