The underlying reasons for Trump's appeal? In 2016 I figure that was: "Not Hillary," and (faux) "populist."
Past that, his authoritative manner, open misogyny and assorted variants of common bigotry might appeal to some.
By 2022 midterms, those were really starting to wear thin in terms of voters assessing how those attributes were playing out in the candidates Trump endorsed for public office. It was like hitting a Trump-shaped pinata and having all these little pissant mini-Trumps come popping out to land everywhere from Congress to county clerk's offices... voters started saying uh, no to that when the expectation was naturally enough that they'd say no to inflation and blame that on Biden so vote Ds out of office.
What else was there about Trump that "appealed" to voters? Tax cuts? Supreme Court picks? Those were borrowed from the R electorate's usual wishlists. But they weren't about him. All those 17 Republicans in the 2016 primaries were going to pitch those. Whatever else Trump himself was about, by 2016 it was all calculated to draw votes.
He has no ideology past autocracy, making a buck for himself and being the center of attention.
The danger in Trump was all his infernal hangers-on and wannabe policy implementers. They hit their slots in his agencies and did whatever they figured they could get away with, while he pirouetted on Twitter and put on a circus of half-baked attempts to end-run our Constitution. Somehow he enthralled the Republican leadership in the meantime, because without that even his first impeachment would have seen him stood down in the Senate. One of these days we'll find out if he "had something" on a lot of those pols...
The danger in the mini-Trumps is some of them are smarter, more ideologically motivated and far more politically savvy than Mr. King(maker). DeSantis is one of them.
