Trump did what Bernie and the U.S. left could never do. All at the same time, he turbo-charged his base and captured the center of American politics. The effect was synthetic in character. He combined the anger of the base with the anger of “the people.” All of it artificial, MAGA fuses the reality of economic inequality in the United States into a toxic and binary miasma of hate.

Catching the political center, Trump took the reality of profound economic and social distress during a moment of inflation and crushing costs of living suffered by ordinary Americans. Appealing to the base, Trump remastered the old political art of blaming real problems on imagainary enemies, on Biden and that b. Harris and people who hate our country.

But all he can pitch is snake oil. He wrapped social truth in a web of lurid lies about immigrants and transexuals, and Democrats, saturated with misogyny and racism, and with violence and threats of violence. The base loved it. From the fascist playbook, the friend/enemy, us/them binary was projected across the digital, mainstream, and alternative media platforms.