Bear in mind that a lot of people took pains to not look at their candidate too closely, to the point where a (slim) voting majority wasn't showing up to rallies etc. during the campaign. One might see this as signs of their being fake, but it could also be suggestive that they didn't want to come out and see where their guy was really at. They voted for the IDEA of him and what they figured he represented, and were indulged in those beliefs as hard as possible.

So this 'approval' is sort of phantom approval. It's approval of a fantasy man who doesn't track too closely with the reality of what's actually happening.

The point where people pay heavily for their erroneous beliefs, for instance by losing their retirements and savings, is a point where people re-evaluate.