“He knows that in a surrealist entertainment-mentality world facts don’t matter and “shiny object” slogans mean everything. He knows how to keep himself on top of the news cycle; every outrageous thing he says or does sends the broadcast media into paroxysms of greed trying to bottle and market the entertainment he provides. He knows that bad-guy publicity is better than no publicity. He has cultivated his public persona as a faux-mafiosa don and huge numbers of people find this wildly entertaining as they experience politics as mere bloodsport in which only personalities, not issues or rules, matter. And that’s enough nowadays to get elected.”