Conservatives want a King just as badly as liberals want a Dictator. Whoever looks and sounds like the one who would be best at smiting the current crop of real or imagined enemies is going to rise in popularity.
There are men in politics today who correctly identify and know what to do to counter America's most dangerous enemies - statism and collectivism - but they don't look or sound to us like good Kings. So we call them "crazy" or "RINOs" or "losertarians" and keep going back to the guys with the big voices and the good hair who prefer to distract the public by attacking the easy targets and never, ever question Holy Alliance of the money center banks and the multinational corporations and the defense industry and the welfare state...entities who like to pretend they are at odds for public consumption but in practice are all loyal supporters of the State.
I think they just can’t face reality. When presented with a collection of bad choices, they simply insist on deluding themselves, not merely that there is a clear choice, albeit with faults, but that there is one choice worthy of love and admiration. They simply can’t deal with reality.