Excerpt:
...Some Trump voters may believe his lies. But plenty more want Trump to be terrifying and stomach-turning so that reelecting him will be a fully realized act of social revenge. Harris cannot propose any policy, offer any benefit, or adopt any position that competes with that feeling.

...[A] toxic combination of social resentment, entitlement, and racial insecurity drives many Trump voters to believe not only that other Americans are looking down on them but that they are doing so while living an undeservedly good life. These others must be punished or at least brought down to a common level of misery to balance the scales, and Trump is the guy to do it.

...My friend Jonathan Last ... says that some Trump supporters “are not (yet) comfortable with admitting this truth to themselves.”

...[T]he truly loyal Trump voters are people who are burning with humiliation. They can’t get over the trauma of losing in 2020, the shame of buying Trump’s lie about rigged elections, and the shock of seeing each of their champions-—Tucker Carlson, Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon, and others-—turn out to be liars and charlatans who have been fired, financially imperiled, or even imprisoned.

Rather than reckoning with the greatest mistake they’ve ever made at the ballot box, they have decided that their only recourse is to put Trump back in the Oval Office. For them, restoring Trump would be both vindication and vengeance.

theatlantic.com - Trumps depravity will not cost him this election