Charlie is taking a well-deserved break this week. In his absence, we'll be remembering some of his greatest hits from throughout this election cycle. Here, he examines the forces powering the Trump movement, and whether the candidate himself fully understands them. Originally published May 2, 2016.

—The Editors

TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA—This was the 27th time Kris had entertained at a campaign rally for He, Trump. He began in Iowa and worked his way across the country while, all around him, the Republican Party finally succumbed to the prion disease that had been eating away at the organization's higher functions for going on four decades, or ever since Ronald Reagan first fed it the monkeybrains starting in 1976. Kris is all country, from his battered Stetson to the spike-sharp tips of his brown boots peeping out from the legs of his worn jeans. Kris sings along to recorded instrumental tracks of songs he has written specifically for the campaign. "Build The Wall," is a particular crowd favorite, as is "The Trump Train." The people waiting along 7th Street stepped out of line just long enough to take selfies with Kris, who tells them the story that he brought with him on the road.

"Mr. Trump stands for protecting our borders, and that falls right in to keeping out all this heroin that's been coming into our country," Kris said. "We have a heroin epidemic in this country. Smaller towns sweep it under the carpet because small towns have large corporations that they're afraid of leaving. So, when somebody gets caught with a large amount of heroin, a lot of times it gets swept under the carpet and you'll never read about it." Not long ago, Kris, who hails from Oswego in upstate New York, lost his son to an overdose.

"This is what's got me out, talking to people in Iowa and a lot of colleges out there, where he was doing rallies at," Kris said. "I'd speak to the kids about heroin, and I'd see them nodding, and I knew that was a place I could speak from my heart. It gives me a little purpose in my life."

On the ground here, The Great Accommodation is a little miracle to watch unfold. From all sides, the institutions of the spavined, crippled Republican Party are coming to grips with the fact that there is no possible legal way to keep He, Trump from being the party's nominee for president. The Republicans who are still resisting the inevitable look more and more ridiculous doing it. On Sunday morning, Tailgunner Ted Cruz appeared at broadcasting's Overlook Hotel, where my man Chuck Todd always has been the caretaker, and he turned himself into a greasy pretzel trying to avoid saying whether or not he will support He, Trump as the nominee. My man Chuck Todd came within a dipthong of telling the Tailgunner to get stuffed. It was very nearly magnificent TV.

It had been a while since I'd been to see the increasingly normalized donkey show that is a Trump rally. The rough edges have been smoothed out a tad, although the events in California last week showed pretty conclusively that they're not entirely gone. The warm-up acts on Sunday included a local minister, who offered a prayer. A Vietnam vet led the Pledge of Allegiance. A former Miss Indiana sang the National Anthem. An overripe state representative called the Affordable Care Act, "the worst law ever passed in this country." (Providing 15 million Americans with affordable health care is worse than the Fugitive Slave Act? Where do they find these people?) And a campaign aide named Stephen Miller wound some stems and burned some barns. He bellowed out a litany of all the Others who have been jiving the good people of Terre Haute out of their country for year after year.

"They don't care about you," Miller thundered. "Donald Trump cares about you!" Jesus, somebody buy this guy a nice armband for his birthday.

Charles Ledford Getty Images

For himself, He, Trump hasn't moved very far out of the comfort zone that has surrounded him since he first ascended to the top of the polls. The stump speech is still a paean to his own greatness as demonstrated by his poll numbers—NBC has him 15 points ahead in Indiana as of Sunday, which really would be the end—and now he has a string of primary victories with which to buttress his limitless self-regard. "Lyin' Ted" has been joined by "Crooked Hillary" in his menagerie of imaginary villains. (Pivot toward the general!) "The government in Iraq is so crooked, maybe we should send Hillary over there to run it."

The stump speech still winds around itself two and three times and it still remains basically a tautological knot. The country has problems. He can solve them because he is He, Trump, and you're not, and neither are those other losers. The difference is that his typical audience is less the free-floating bag of grievances they once were. They now carry themselves as dedicated supporters. They don't care how many times in one speech he talks about the trade deficit. They cheer every time he mentions knuckling China. He is winning. They are winning. That's what matters.

"The Washington Post has a big article right here," he said. "The time has come to admit that Republican voters want Donald Trump as their nominee." And then, as the applause rises again, he spreads his arms and unleashes the very encyclopedia model of a shit-eating grin. He's probably talking about a piece last week in which Philip Bump—who is not the entire Washington Post—found some establishment Republicans who resignedly are signing on with The Great Accommodation. But nobody in the Indiana Theater cares. It was one more fight that they all won. His fait is accompli now, and so is theirs.

"If I win," he said, "it's a mandate. It's a mandate for genius."

Throughout the speech, if you can call it a speech, it was hard not to wonder about the people in the hall, especially when He, Trump told the crowd that, "Lyin' Ted will always let you down." Now that his support has solidified and proven durable all over the country, there are a lot of people whose investment in him is now total.

I wondered about Kris out on the sidewalk, who has followed He, Trump around the country because he liked what He, Trump said about closing borders to cut off the heroin that killed his child. That is a heavy burden to carry and a heavy burden to place on a candidate, even a candidate who has asked to carry it, which Trump certainly has not done. He is riding on a wave of pain that he never has felt. He is riding on a wave of anxiety he never has encountered. Beyond their love of him, there is no indication that he is as deeply aware of what has powered his rise as the people whose fear, and doubt, and, yes, hatred has powered his rise. Their job is still to wait in line, cheer on cue, and give him the devotion that he has earned because, after all, he is He, Trump, and they're not, and that will never change.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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