Scott Adams claimed that Trump uses methods from hypnosis. I have no idea if that's true, but it's the best explanation I've seen for the irrational support he still gets.

No one is making the argument that he's the best president ever, or even a good one. The point is that he became the President of the USA - he played the game very very well.

It becomes more apparent when you see his videos on the subject from the 1980s - he was planning this move for decades.

perhaps the point I missed, is that because he is so visibly un-sellable, yet successfully sold himself, he wins, because Blair and Obama had underlying competencies. Trump is the best salesman, because he is selling.. nothing. And its being bought.

>Trump is a world-class salesman.

When did Mexico agree to pay for the wall?

That’s part of the pitch. He’s not selling to Mexico.

This is what a lot of people don’t get. All the stupid shit he says is for his base. He doesn’t care about Mexico.

People get that, they just disagree that it's a sign of political genius on his part.

Getting them to pay was never a concern -- he's trying to rile up the base.

Plus he's a construction magnate -- get enough traction to get a preliminary budget and start allocating funds to his buddies. Even if it's just a concrete wall for 1/3 of Texas that's big $$$ for his construction cronies.

He's not world class at selling walls. He's world class at selling Donald Trump.

Indeed. He's not getting paid (in both actual dollars and in attention) for having walls built. Whether the wall gets built or not is entirely irrelevant as long as he gets votes.

Unfortunately, selling "walls" (policy) is his actual job.

He's like a vacuum cleaner salesman who can always get his foot in the door, but can never manage to sell a unit.

Not quite.

He's like a vacuum salesman who promises to give his customers dishwashers and toasters for free if they buy a vacuum cleaner.

When they buy the vacuum cleaner, it turns out he lied about the other goods but they still ended up with the vacuum cleaner. But what a lot of people really wanted was the dishwasher.

I may have pushed the analogy a little too far...