The whole reason he is where he is boils down to the fact that he spent decades building a cult of personality, and he happens to be a world-class, shameless liar. It is the kind of trait you see in high-functioning psychopaths who can look you dead in the eye and invent reality on the spot.

Look at his actual track record. Every single business venture he has touched has cratered because he treats companies like cash cows to bleed dry, taking his cut and running right before the whole thing collapses. The genius businessman myth is total fiction. He is not a visionary operator. He is just a walking billboard for everything broken about American culture, where a massive chunk of the population is genuinely fine lighting their own lives on fire as long as they think the people they hate are getting hurt worse.

His entire M.O. is a constant loop of whining about being the victim while giving everyone else an excuse to be absolute garbage human beings. He built an entire movement out of spiteful, miserable assholes who were just waiting for someone to give them permission to lean into their worst impulses and call it fighting back.