Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte argued in her Monday column that Donald Trump’s supporters are buying an obvious health fantasy because MAGA politics function less like a normal movement and more like a cult built around a swaggering strongman. The Wall Street Journal reported late Sunday that Trump's medical records lack the specific information that physicians say they would expect from a thorough physical. In Marcotte's telling, the reason MAGA believes Trump's every claim is that it is a cult. After his physical, Trump cheered that "everything checked out perfectly.""This is almost certainly a lie, though how big of one remains to be seen. People in perfect health don’t have swollen and bruised hands or the water balloon-sized ankles Trump sometimes sports," wrote Marcotte. She noted that even Trump's staffers have exposed his health issues. They attribute any problems to Trump's chronic venous insufficiency, which Trump was diagnosed with after his legs started swelling up."There is zero reason to trust Trump or his staff; they lie constantly about nearly everything," said Marcotte. "This includes false explanations about the president’s health, because the White House keeps insisting he’s merely blinking in photos with his eyes closed, when anyone who watches the videos can see his eyes are shut for long stints of time, and not just milliseconds."She noted that normal people with good health don't have the medical problems that Trump appears to have, like the rash on his neck, the swelling in his legs and the bruising on his hands. Overnight, Trump was posing on social media again, prompting questions about whether he's having insomnia problems.But, she said that as a "life-long con artist," Trump is great at playing the "Daddy-like figure," as his supporters are desperate to satisfy the "childish impulse" to believe that he will always save them. "Trump’s political success is due almost entirely to his understanding of this, along with a willingness to lean more fully into the role of cult leader beyond what even [Ronald] Reagan or [George W.] Bush were capable of," wrote Marcotte.Marcotte closed by acknowledging that past presidents had huge egos, but Trump's level of narcissism and ignorance of history "allows him to half-convince himself that he’s a great man. This is certainly why he picked the GOP over the Democratic Party when he decided to run for office. A lifelong con artist, Trump saw that the Republican Party was a sea of marks who would offer themselves up for exploitation forever, as long as he was willing to pretend to be the almighty prophet-leader they craved."
