Trump has this weird-seeming rhetorical strategy. He will admit to doing things that would be disqualifying not only for any other politician, but for any other businessman-reformer candidate. He admits to being a crony capitalist who buys politicians. He admits that he uses foreign guest worker programs to avoid employing Americans. Given Trump’s issue positions, those admissions should make Trump’s own constituency want tar and feather him. So why isn’t it working out that way? That is because Trump’s truth telling is part of the Trump con.

Con artists have long understood that if you tell the truth about A and B, it is easier to sell the marks on C, D, and E. Trump’s (seeming) admissions against interest actually increase his credibility when he lies about Trump steaks, or how he polls against Hillary Clinton, or about the wonderful deals he will negotiate, or whatever.

Cons aren’t just about lying. Anybody can lie. Cons are about creating a false intimacy with the mark. When Trump admits that his tariff threats are a negotiating tactic, or that the size of his classy beautiful wall is negotiable, he is actually increasing his credibility. Trump’s voters are pretty cynical. They don’t believe that politicians do everything they do out of love for the Constitution or America. Trump talking about all the times he has looked out for himself sounds much closer to real life than conventional politicians talking about how they have acted out of nothing but pure motives throughout their public careers.

And yet, the cynicism of Trump’s supporters is a weakness. In rejecting the exaggerated idealism of conventional politicians, they have embraced an opportunist, and a serial liar as a reformist who tells it like it is. They have fallen into a loop where the more Trump admits that he is a fraud, the more they trust him.