“It’s like Let’s Make a Deal,” said Trump the next day to a caller, referencing the long-running game show from the 1960s—somehow yet his psychic era—where audience members dressed up in foolish costumes to get the attention of the host.

The speakers at the December 12 event were themselves a retinue of Trump attention seekers: Michael Flynn, the former general who had briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor before being rolled out of office for lying to the FBI, had, after pleading guilty, reversed himself and abjectly reaffirmed his Trump loyalty, finally getting his pardon just days before the rally. Sebastian Gorka, a figure of uncertain provenance and function in the Trump White House during its first months, was one of the early oddballs to be pushed out when John Kelly became chief of staff and had pursued a Trump-based media career ever since. Also speaking, Alex Jones, the conspiracy auteur, and MyPillow entrepreneur Mike Lindell, a former drug addict and a current fevered conspiracist.

Four people were stabbed and thirty-three arrested in the December protest, most in the several-hour melee that took place after sundown. Three weeks before January 6, the end of the Trump administration was already being greeted with riots and violence.

“Seems like quite a few crazies,” said Trump to aides the next day.

This was, in hindsight—or might have been recognized as such in hindsight—a run-through for the groups who would be gathering in Washington on January 6. But it was also a pretty good insight into Trump’s view. The fan base was always peculiar. Stars needed fans, but this did not mean that a fan was not a strange thing to be. The more devoted the fan, the odder the fan. Like any megastar, Trump saw his fans from a far distance out. Certainly, there was no personal connection. A star could not assume responsibility for his fans, could he? Indeed, the fans were not the star; the star was the star. Never forget.

But it wasn’t just the crazies. There was method here, too. The January 6 march on Washington, in the subtle variations among the organizing groups, was, for many, an effort not so much to keep Trump in power as to find the best position for when he was no longer in power.

Here was the math: He was going to lose the White House; that was certainly sure. But he was going to be left with enormous reach and sway and influence. Every member of Congress now supporting his electoral challenge was thinking forward to Trump’s future usefulness to them.

Likewise, for the organizers of the Washington march.

It was the singular difference between Trump and former presidents that his power and standing might not largely depend on the White House, that he could go on being Donald Trump, with the awe and devotion this involved, without being president.

And the money that flowed through him, that flowed because of him, wasn’t going to run dry simply because he was not in office.