Donald Trump possesses the realpolitik of Mayor McCheese and the big-picture vision of David Duke.

You certainly don’t want to believe that the majority of Americans would vote for a vicious bigot who’s smeared POWs, women, disabled people, Mexicans, African-Americans and Muslims. But Trump certainly has found a base: Voters who feel like their sense of privilege is under siege. It is, of course, but not the way they think it is, not from terrorists from the Middle East or laborers from south of the border. Globalization, automation and tax codes that favor the wealthy have devastated the American middle class, largely white and now red in the face. The postwar redistribution of wealth through taxes is long gone, given way to loopholes that favor the inheritors, the land grabbers, the Trumps.

“They seem so nice, your friends and neighbors. Your fellow Americans,” writes Molly Ball in a smart and lucid Atlantic piece about the fear of falling and the rise of bigotry, even fascism, in U.S. Presidential politics. An excerpt:

Four months into his crazed foray into presidential politics, Trump is still winning this thing. And what could once be dismissed as a larkish piece of political performance art has seemingly turned into something darker. Pundits, even conservative ones, say that Trump resembles a fascist. The recent terrorist attacks in Paris, which some hoped would expose Trump’s shallowness, have instead strengthened him by intensifying people’s anger and fear. Trump has falsely claimed that thousands of Muslims cheered the 9/11 attacks from rooftops in New Jersey; he has declined to rule out a national database of Muslims. The other day, a reporter asked Trump if the things he was proposing weren’t just like what the Nazis did to the Jews. Trump replied, “You tell me.”

Some observers still think Trump’s support might be soft. Trump has dipped in the polls a couple of times, after a listless debate performance, for example. Perhaps the people who first glommed on to his celebrity got bored and drifted away. But if so, they didn’t find anybody else they liked. And they came back. And now, they are not leaving.

“I have got my mind made up, pretty much so,” says Michael Barnhill, a 67-year-old factory supervisor with a leathery complexion and yellow teeth. “The fact is, politicians have not done anything for our country in a lot of years.”

These people are not confused. They are sticking with Trump, the only candidate who gets it, who is man enough to show the enemy who’s boss.•