What is that that explains the power of former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric to galvanize a movement that now threatens the foundations of American democracy? And how can the Democrats hope to combat it?

Sigmund Freud’s theory of illusion can help us answer both of these questions.

Freud defined illusions as beliefs that we hold because we want them to be true. “The life imposed on us is too hard to bear,” he wrote, “it brings too much pain, too many disappointments, to many insoluble problems. If we are to endure it, we cannot do without palliative measures.”

It’s the universal experience of helplessness that fuels the most powerful of these illusions. We are helpless because we are mortal beings, unable to master the forces of nature that are indifferent to our well-being – and because we are vulnerable to cruelty and injustice at the hands of others. We cling to illusions to make life bearable.

Importantly, Freud believed that the experience of helplessness throws us back to the time when we were small, vulnerable children, completely dependent on our parents for safety and security.

Freud thought that religion was an all-too human response to our feelings of helplessness. It offers us salvation from the terrors of life by offering the illusion of protection by an all-powerful Father.

Like religion, authoritarian politics traffics in helplessness and illusion. The method is simple and it’s one that all demagogues intuitively understand. First you magnify people’s fears and insecurities by convincing them that they are being humiliated, persecuted and endangered. Then you convince them that you – and you alone – can offer them salvation.

Donald Trump is a master of the politics of illusion. He cultivates feelings of helplessness in his audience, telling them that America is teetering on the brink of collapse. He fumes that the Democrats have permitted untold millions of violent criminals to pour into the country, raping and murdering Americans, and concludes with a messianic, quasi-religious appeal for them to unite behind the one man able to make America great again.

The recent attempt on the former president’s life provided him with a golden opportunity to work this kind magic, and he wasted no time leaning into it. Unbowed and unbroken, he stood on the stage, pumping his fist with manly vigor, roaring “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

But the savior must also be God’s choice. Within hours of the assassination attempt, the MAGA faithful began weaving a narrative that divine intervention had saved Trump’s life. God had protected his chosen one. Then, early on Sunday morning, Trump posted on X that “it was God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening. We will FEAR NOT, but instead remain resilient and Defiant in the face of Wickedness.”

By midday, pastors in mega- and not-so-mega churches all over the country were preaching that it was God himself who shielded Trump from the assassin’s bullet. During the days that followed, the image of Trump as a divinely appointed hero was everywhere in speeches at the Republican national convention.

How can the Democrats hope to defeat a resurgent Republican party now so firmly under Trump’s control, intoxicated with the illusion that he is the messiah who can lead the nation to a promised land of peace and prosperity?

Imagine that Freud could be brought back from the dead to share his insights. What advice might he give to the Democratic party?

I think that Freud would remind the Democrats that it’s emotions rather than facts that win elections; pointing out Trump’s lies and fear-mongering about crime, immigration and the economy won’t have much of an impact. And he would say that it’s probably counterproductive to focus on Trump’s criminality and the danger that he poses to democracy, because this only enhances the strongman image that so many Americans seem to find irresistible.

President Biden must be replaced by a candidate who can pop the bubble of illusion surrounding Trump – a candidate who can draw back the curtain and expose to the nation the small, weak man behind the grandiose facade. That is the Democrats’ best and perhaps only hope.