There are three factors that work for him.

• Since he has no integrity or backbone whatsoever, he says what people want to hear. Even if he does fuck all.
• Conservatives have a lot of hatred for the changing society - he gives them an enemy to "fight" against. Even if it's jewish space lasers.
• Some people think that things happen in a vacuum. They vote for one part of the conservative agenda that they agree with and ignore the threat he represents as a whole.

They’re too embarrassed by this point to admit they made a mistake (and they see what happens to people like Chris Christie) so they stay with the cult.

It’s also a Reverse Cargo Cult:

In a regular cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw, hoping for the same outcome. They don’t know the difference between a straw airstrip and a real one, they just want the cargo.

In a reverse cargo cult, you have people who see an airstrip, and the cargo drops, so they build one out of straw. But there’s a twist:

When they build the straw airstrip, it isn’t because they are hoping for the same outcome. They know the difference, and know that because their airstrip is made of straw, it certainly won’t yield any cargo, but it serves another purpose. They don’t lie to the rubes and tell them that an airstrip made of straw will bring them cargo. That’s an easy lie to dismantle. Instead, what they do is make it clear that the airstrip is made of straw, and doesn’t work, but then tell you that the other guy’s airstrip doesn’t work either. They tell you that no airstrips yield cargo. The whole idea of cargo is a lie, and those fools, with their fancy airstrip made out of wood, concrete, and metal is just as wasteful and silly as one made of straw.

1980s Soviets knew that their government was lying to them about the strength and power of their society, the Communist Party couldn’t hide all of the dysfunctions people saw on a daily basis. This didn’t stop the Soviet leadership from lying. Instead, they just accused the West of being equally deceptive. “Sure, things might be bad here, but they are just as bad in America, and in America people are actually foolish enough to believe in the lie! Not like you, clever people. You get it. You know it is a lie.”

Trump’s supporters don’t care about being lied to. You can point out the lies until you’re blue in the face, but it makes no difference to them. Why? Because it is just a game to them. The media lies, bloggers lie, politicians lie, it’s just all a bunch of lies. Facts don’t matter because those are lies also. Those trolls on Twitter, 4Chan, T_D, etc. are just having a good laugh. They are congratulating each other for being so smart. We are fools for still believing in anything. There is no cargo, and probably never was.

He says the terrible shit they are thinking out loud and belittles anyone who disagrees. They are living vicariously through him.

Not a liar, a bullshitter.

Lying requires some respect for the truth. It implies you are trying to deceive by denying or obscuring the actual facts of the matter, but lying still involves trying to convince someone that your alternative story is true.

Trump and Co. are just straight up bullshitters. Reality is completely irrelevant, and they just make up whatever sounds good on the fly with zero regard for whether it's even consistent with what they said 10 minutes ago.

The maddening part with bullshitters is you can't even debate or reason with them because the truth literally doesn't matter to them or their audience.

"He's not lying to me, he's lying to them (the media, libs, etc.)"

Like, imagine you gave up on anything ever getting better and just wanted to fling shit at the people you blame for your misery. There is no bigger piece of shit to fling than Donald Trump.

Is there a theory on how he's the true lizard man come to sow dissent? Can we start one? He doesn't even know our terms and idioms, dead giveaway.

The whole of the GQP made it their playbook

Or understand his incoherent rants.