Everything Donald Trump said and did during his Saturday speech at the North Carolina state Republican convention exemplifies why he will be an influencer in GOP politics, likely for the rest of his life (even perhaps into a jail term he could face).

Trump’s speech was just a K-Tel compilation of the golden oldies:  fear the immigrants streaming over the border; only *I* can save the nation; the altered history of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic; and the stoking of the ever present GOP fear of The Other.

That’s why Trump will always be a figure in Republican politics:  he feed the basic nature of that Republicans need to keep their base alive.  He tells them that nothing is their fault (China is responsible for Trump’s failure to address the virus).  He tells them that everything someone else did was actually their accomplishments (like the vaccine distribution).  And that what you read about history is wrong and only he knows the truth (like he had the greatest economic growth in history).

A good cult must have a faultless leader, and Trump meets that definition not because he was actually faultless, but simply that he *acts* like he’s faultless.  This allows the GOP faithful to hold him up for generations as the ideal leader who did nothing wrong–because HE said so.

Remember, Republicans did this with George W. Bush, too.  He was their Almighty until the economic collapse of 2008 was too devastating for the GOP to ignore.  Bush tried blaming it on Clinton, but that didn’t make sense.

Trump, on the other hand, has a convenient scapegoat:  China.  The virus wasn’t his fault; it was China’s irresponsibility that cause the US to have the per capita rate of cases and then the subsequent economic collapse.

You see, Trump will be with Republicans as long as he can keep them believing that nothing is his fault–and therefore nothing is their fault.  They’re just victims of China, of the “Fake News,” and of those dastardly Democrats.