Everything - even reason - is sacrificed in a cult of personality. One thing Sowell touches upon is how the media have promoted Trump. In our society, all you need to become the god of the moment is media celebrityhood. It doesn’t really matter what you’re famous for, as long as you’re famous. Obama exploited that very well, and Trump has made a career of it and, in addition, has enough money of his own to keep turning up all over the place and keep his name in the news.
And there’s also the “if it bleeds, it leads” value. I lived in NY when Trump’s name was in lurid tabloid headlines everyday - for one of his messy divorces, for his latest affair with the Slavic model of the moment, for a ruthless property lawsuit, for a casino building scandal etc. He has found that you need neither moral character nor ideas to become a populist hero - simply Kardashian-style celebrityhood. And it is the very MSM that everybody here professes to hate that is orchestrating this.
One thing Sowell touches upon is how the media have promoted Trump
Trump has used the media. The only “promoting” the media is doing for Trump is attacks and ridicule.