Trump does all these off-year rallies for two reasons:
1. He enjoys them. I donāt think I see pictures of him smiling while heās doing his job, but thereās always a big goofy grin when heās onstage for his true believers. He can say anything there, and they love him for it.
2. It was reported back in 2015 that Trump has had a longtime Hitler fixation - not necessarily that he admires the manās deeds, though thereās probably a good analysis to be done on that basis but that heās done a fair amount of reading and study of him. I strongly suspect that he thinks this sort of rally is what a strong leader does.
And the ideas reinforce each other. āLook at my rallies, arenāt I great?ā
They are ugly, and frankly unamerican, but I donāt worry about them directly because theyāre such a circle-jerk. I worry that there are places like Fox that cover them uncritically. I worry about that a lot.