[randcraw]

More than socio-economic, the chief factor that advances US political candidates is, simply, fame. These days fame is achieved by somehow becoming an outlier: loud extremism, incessant self promotion, and spending truly insane amounts of money. Intelligence of any kind is irrelevant.

[add-sub-mul-div]

Yeah. The right hasn't been able to repeat Trump, other candidates following his playbook have usually failed. And I think it's because they don't have his three-plus decades of lowest common denominator fame and enough money to buy himself out of repeated business failure and corruption. It's a perfect storm.