His base can relate to him because he is so much like them; intellectually simple, ill-informed and spring loaded to the blame game. He tells his base exactly what they want to hear. If he told them to get off their lazy asses, don’t drop out of school, stop smoking dope, stop going out and having 5 illegitimate children by 5 different mothers and get a real job, he would become a pariah.
Bill Cosby said this a few years ago and got hammered for it.