Sometimes with legislation. Sometimes with guns. Pundits and news sites are still analyzing fallout from CNN’s Trump “town hall” spectacle. We learned nothing about the former president we did not already know. The fiasco changed no minds. James Fallows invoked “shocking but not surprising” to summarize the show. “Don’t say you haven’t been warned” sits atop Susan Glasser’s review. The jeers and laughter from the Trump mob, she writes, “was the tell, the most revealing part of the whole exercise.” Without “the approval of the mob, his mob,” Trump “would be just another angry old American man” shouting at his TV instead of being on TV. It is the audience for his shtick that gives it power, and us pause. The relationship is symbiotic, but Trump is not telling them anything they don’t want to hear. Trump has his grievances, but he validates theirs, gives them permission to wear “Fuck Your Feelings” tee shirts in public. He reads the room. He sees them and makes them feel seen in all their dark seething. He is their retribution. Whatever other mind-altering substances he abuses, Trump is famously a teetotaler. A therapist friend once commented that Baptist teetotaling culture produces a slew of closet drinkers. Fundamentalists oversell their product. They make unrealistic claims for how much better life goes with Jesus (or whoever). When those extravagant claims don’t pan out, believers hide their troubles for fear of appearing of weak faith. They repress their feelings. Stuff them down deep. I’m going to…