Most victims of cons figure out they’ve been had. They open the envelope that’s supposed to be full of money and find newspaper. Their calls to their flashy new broker keep going to voicemail and when they visit their office, they find a For Rent sign in the window and nobody has a forwarding address. When the victim realizes they’ve been taken, they usually feel embarrassed and ashamed. Grifters count on that. They know that most of their marks won’t go to the cops because they feel stupid and don’t want to compound it by looking stupid. Some do go to the cops of course, because their desire to recover their losses or get back at the grifter for ripping them off outweighs their humiliation.

Trump Supporters aren’t like that.

We could tell ourselves they were in 2016–that they fell for the TV host with the line of bull. We can’t blame them for being tricked, we said to ourselves. They’re his victims, and we’re the sort who empathize with victims, right? But we can’t tell ourselves that now. Victims of cons believed their grifter was honest. They counted on it. They sometimes bet their entire net worth on it. If Trump supporters were like that, they’d have felt betrayed the first time Trump was caught in a lie. (That would’ve been…what? 40,000 or 50,000 lies ago?) They would’ve slunk away from him or demanded accountability from him. They don’t act like victims of a con at all. No matter how much he lies to them, rips them off, betrays their hopes, and sells them out, they keep going back, willingly, even happily.

Remember Bernie Madoff? The guy put up a front far more respectable than anything Donald Trump could manage. Everyone involved with him believed he was a legitimate Wall Street mover. But when his Ponzi scheme was exposed, it all evaporated. His victims demanded restitution. Law enforcement swooped in. And once the truth was out nary a soul came forward to say to him, “Hey, Bernie, 25% return, you say? Take my routing and account numbers.”

Meanwhile, Trump’s supporters buy his golden shoes and bibles and just made him president again.

Masha Gessen in Surviving Autocracy points to Hannah Arendt’s description of the autocrat’s supporter as a gullible cynic, someone dismissive of authority, facts, and reason from any source except (possibly) their leader. And even when they realize their leader has been lying to them, instead of feeling betrayed, they feel amused. They even give their leader credit for the cleverness of their lie and its usefulness in confounding their shared enemies. Does gullible cynicism explain every Trump supporter? Maybe. I can’t get in their heads. But it’s clear from the outside of their heads (which is where Trump supporters cause the most trouble) that truth is not what they want or expect out of their relationship with him, which is why his constant lies don’t piss them off. Whatever they are getting–license to hate, the thrill of being his partner in crime, the hope that if they stick with him long enough he really can make them rich and powerful too–makes them think he’s worth their love, money, and votes.

It’s a sick, sad dynamic that’s about to make our world so much worse.