THE END OF TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN FELT LIKE A MELTDOWN, BUT WASN'T ONE -- AND THE TRANSITION FEELS THE SAME WAY

Remember the end of Donald Trump's 2024 campaign? The town hall that concluded with Trump dancing onstage for a half-hour? The anecdote about Arnold Palmer's penis? The Madison Square Garden rally -- in a state Trump had no chance of winning -- that turned into a racist, profane grievance-fest? The fry cook and garbageman cosplay?

We thought the wheels were coming off the bus. We thought the public would recognize Trump's obvious unfitness to serve. Instead, he won the election, won the popular vote for the first time, and received more votes and a greater percentage of the popular vote than he had in his first two elections.

So am I saying that the 2024 Trump campaign wasn't a shambolic mess? No. In many ways, it was a shambolic mess. But it appears to have been a shambolic mess in such an aggressive, in-your-face way that millions of voters responded positively to the preposterousness of it all. They liked Trump's arthritic dance moves and granddad music playlist. They decided, somehow, that the unapologetic way Trump would say any WTF thing he felt like saying meant he was just the crazy bastard America needed to take on the bad guys.

It makes no sense to me. But this is what half of America wanted.

It's happening in the transition, too. Here are just some of the current headlines:

* Trump to Discuss Ending Childhood Vaccination Programs with RFK Jr. (paired with Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine)

* Trump Advisers Seek to Shrink or Eliminate Bank Regulators: Advisers Asked Potential Nominees Whether Trump Could Abolish the FDIC

* Massad Boulos, Hailed as a Billionaire Lawyer Advising Trump on Middle East Policy, Probably Isn't a Lawyer or a Billionaire (a story about the father-in-law of Trump's daughter Tiffany, who, far from being a billionaire and Middle East expert, in fact "spent the past two decades selling trucks and heavy machinery in Nigeria for a company his father-in-law controls. He is chief executive of the company, SCOA Nigeria PLC, which made a profit of less than $66,000 last year, corporate filings show")

Trump is putting up one unqualified, dangerous appointee after another -- Robert Kennedy Jr, Pete Hegseth, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Kari Lake. Trump may have appointed the ex-fiancée of one of his sons as ambassador to Greece to facilitate the breakup.

And yet a majority of Americans approve of the Trump transition, according to a CNN poll; a Marist poll finds that 47% of respondents approve and 39% disapprove. According to a Morning Consult poll, Trump's favorability is at a seven-year high.

It seems to me that voters don't care what Trump is doing -- they just like the fact that he's doing whatever he's doing vigorously and forcefully. Once again, it appears that a famous 2002 Bill Clinton remark was correct:

"When people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right."

Trump is proving that there's apparently no limit to how wrong you can be and still get the benefit of seeming strong. And meanwhile, the current strategy of Democrats -- say nothing negative about Trump's decision-making no matter how awful it is, while talking up potential areas of agreement with Trump -- seems the epitome of weak. I'm baffled that Democrats think this is their route back to power. They should be making noise, for the simple reason that voters clearly respect politicians who make noise more than they respect politicians who are meek and quiet.

Once he's in office, Trump might get away with decisions that seriously hurt Americans simply because he'll be hurting them noisily. Under those circumstances, we need an opposition party that can make some noise, too.