Can you US folk, explain to the ignorant and uninitiated like me, where Trump's support comes from and how he keeps getting away with lies and making a fool of himself, yet retains his popularity? I know he's regenerated some of the formally defunct industries and the stock market has been booming, but overall the man is a loose cannon on every level and not to be trusted?
I think we're still coming to grips with this, and different people support him for different reasons. He hasn't really done much for any of these defunct industries, and of course the stock market is not the best indicator of widespread economic health--just ask the average investor in 1929.
If I had to isolate one simple thing about Trump that appeals to people, it's that he pisses off people like me. I've often said that the only thing Trump has ever been successful at is convincing ignorant people that he's successful. They like the fact that he just shoots off at the mouth, and that he's full of shit, because they've convinced themselves that the world (which in their minds means pointy-headed academics like me, social justice activists, Democratic Party types like Clinton/Biden, dangerous "Antifa" mobs, and so on) are out to get them. They love that he upsets people who they (with some justification) think have ignored them or condescended to them for years. They like the fact that he uses his office to enrich his family and to carry out private vendettas, because that's what they'd do if they were in office. Above all, they support him not in spite of the stupid shit he says, but because of it.
A consequence of this is that every time someone points out that he's full of shit, or that something he's said is appallingly racist, or whatever, it actually strengthens his appeal. It's evidence that the people they resent, and view as basically un-American, are out to get Trump because he's smashing the system.
But to go a bit deeper: Where does all this come from? That depends on who you ask, but I think a lot of it is white resentment and anxiety. Republicans have been playing on racial resentment since the late sixties, Trump is just saying the quiet part loud. It's appealing because working-class white people have witnessed the jobs their parents had vanish in the last decades. Literally every town of under 150,000 people in the state where I live has suffered from closing industries, and we haven't had the political will to address that, partially because our politics is completely in the pocket of corporate interests. The fact that this has largely been due to the popularity of conservative economic views is lost on people who have pretty reliably voted for Republicans due to their social views (abortion, in particular). It's easier and less threatening to their worldview to blame it on African Americans, or on immigrants, or "socialists," or whatever.
Trump may be a babbling, incoherent cretin, but he has gutter instincts. He knows that desperate people are willing to believe bullshit, and he knows exactly what buttons to push to make them feel desperate. I'm always struck by how sad it is that many of these people have convinced themselves that some two-bit grifter from Queens who literally couldn't be any more patronizing to them is somehow their savior. And in so doing, they're empowering the absolute looting of America.
This is a bit long, but it still only scratches the surface. But IMO these are the factors that motivate his political base.
