Writer Michael Kruse doesn't much like Trump and he writes for Politico which holds a similar view of Trump. In spite of the setting and the author's bias, Kruse writes perceptively about Donald J. Trump's highly successful manner of connecting with audiences.
“Donald Trump has an ability to bring you in with his humor,” former Trump White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told me, “and it really is kind of one of his best characteristics. It humanizes him in a way that I think a lot of politicians are scared of, wouldn’t do, or can’t do.”
It explains why Trump can get away with saying off the wall things like he'd invite Russia to invade any NATO country which failed to spend its promised share on defense. His supporters read it, accurately, as exaggeration to make a point.
The excellent Salena Zito summarized it as his followers taking him "seriously but not literally," which is exactly how you'd react to someone doing political humor. No wonder he can fill stadiums, he is an excellent entertainer. Stylistically, Trump's delivery is a mixture of Bob Hope, Don Rickles and Mort Sahl.
I date myself with that comparison. I'm sure there are modern equivalents but I stopped watching standup perhaps three decades back. I changed, they stopped being funny, or quite possibly both.
