My answer is— because he’s so human but not necessarily humane.  Unlike some of his Republican Party Primary rivals that come across as robotic,  Trump is anything but—which is both the good news and the bad news.  He’s like a protagonist of Greek mythology that suffers for his hubris. And those stories resonate with a universal psyche that is timeless like a Jungian archetype. We identify with Trump’s strengths and his tragic flaws. He’s a fascinating mix of the sacred and the profane. We can all relate to that. Trump is the hero of the common man even though his life style is light years away from the 99 % of us because people identify with his inconsistencies.  We share his weaknesses as much as his strengths. He says what most people think but don’t say.  He doesn’t suffer, like many of us do, from what the French call; l’ esprit d’ escalier’ which literally means the spirit of the staircase, it’s that “I should have said feeling’ that we get when we regret not having spoken up. If it’s in his head, it’s out his mouth.

Donald Trump’s personality has many facets, some are contradictory. He is like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and the Energizer Bunny rolled into one. Trump is proud that he doesn’t take crap from anyone; that’s a strength. But he’s easily hurt and shows it, exposing his soft underbelly and appearing thin-skinned, misunderstood even wounded, as is revealed in his middle- of- the- night mean-spirited tweets. We make a partial identification with him because he reflects an aspect of our personality that we tend to deny.    Trump claims that he’s only protecting himself from attack. He likes to think that he never strikes first, but he surely strikes back.   But he can be brittle and even vindictive, using ad hominen arguments to discredit opponents.

Another factor that may contribute to his popularity is our national obsession with fluff. We’re impatient with substance, with details.  We want the quick fix, the sound bite.  That’s why people love Trump even after he spouts illogical solutions to complicated problems.  We’re a nation of ADD.  Remember Reagan’s–“It’s morning in America”? Or Bush’s–“Thousand Points of Light”?  What the hell were they talking about it?  Who cares? It sounded good.  Now we have Trump’s “Make America Great–Again”.  Everyone know what it means even though it doesn’t really mean anything.  RAH! RAH!