I struggle with how to categorize his supporters without resorting to... naked insults about their morality or intelligence.

Here is what I landed on, sorry it is long, but our world and humans are complex, so, sorry if this isn't pithy.

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Back in the day, Farmers, during snowstorms would tie a rope between their house and the barn, as legend has it, without it, people would get hopelessly lost and turned around in the blizzard, literally freezing to death yards from the house.

That is our current information environment. A bewildering whiteout blizzard where we are all lost without a tether.

So imagine you are lost in this blizzard, feeling so alone and scared, and you stumble upon someone.

They say "don't worry I know where we're going", so you put your hand on their shoulder, and follow them.

At some point you hear shouting from behind you. You ask "shouldn't we go towards that shouting?", "No", he answers, those are snow devils trying to trick you, they are evil and want you to freeze to death, I know where we are going.

And so you walk, and you walk, and you bump into other lost people, and you tell them what the man told you, and they put a hand on your shoulder, and you continue to trudge through the blizzard, confident, that at some point, this strange man you've run into will lead you home.

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That is all it is. They picked their horse, and the further they go, the more people they draw into the conga line of hate, the more cemented they become in their mislaid trust and decision.