Somehow a NY Times headline popped up in my Facebook news feed, and it said something about GOP candidates “sticking to the script, if not to the facts.”

The story was about how party loyalty seems to have completely replaced factual accuracy as the gold standard by which candidates are judged these days, but I think perhaps it did not go as far as it might. I think that the NYT has summed up, in a nutshell, why so many conservatives like Donald Trump, despite his rather unreliable track record as a conservative.

What they like about Trump is not so much his right-wing bona fides. It’s the fact that the man not only sticks to the script, he writes his own. Facts don’t bother him. Politics don’t bother him. He doesn’t even care all that much what he said last week. He knows what people want to hear, and he’s not afraid to say it. And the fallout and flack that result only enhances his appeal because it shows that facts and politics don’t bother him. He writes his own script.

That’s gotta have a huge appeal to people who are sick and tired of having their cherished beliefs and worldview shattered time and time again by hard, uncaring realities. They want a hero, a man who can stand up and boldly promise them whatever they want, and to hell with the consequences. They want a script that’s immune to fact-checkers and fault-finders. Trump seems to be the guy that can deliver the script they want.

What, you think it ought to matter whether or not he can deliver the goods if and when it comes time to actually execute that script? You must be one of them liberal, godless, socialist Doubting Thomases.