There are a lot of uneducated, low information voters in this country who want a strong man xenophobe to make them feel safe. At least sixty million. The fact that he gets a large crowd is more unfortunate than impressive.

The media generally never shows the crowds at any political event, the cameras are always faced forward at the podium. There's almost never any journalistic question, or value, as to the crowd size. We're supposed to be listening to the what the politician has to say, regardless of the physical turnout. If too much hay is made of crowd sizes, politicians will be inclined to avoid constituencies where a large crowd isn't assured, and that's not good for democracy. Trump and the Republicans get a lot of mileage with their base by portraying themselves as victims.