He is, was, and always has been a conman. He’s scary good at convincing morons to hand him money, and that’s pretty much his one and only skill. That’s very different from forming a coalition which is about getting people that barely tolerate each other to agree to work together.

On the topic of how rabid his fans are, I wonder how much sunk cost fallacy plays into the whole thing. Like once you hand a big chunk of money to the orange turd do you continue to back him no matter what because to change your mind would be to admit you wasted all that money?