Yeah, they seem to be willing to bolster their numbers however they can, and it kind of creates a sense of obligation in the persona non grata to pander to them too. A pretty effective strategy really.
It makes me feel even more gross about him though - he obviously has no integrity, and like you say, maybe he never did. Perhaps there’s a bit of desperation there too? Just taking what he can get now. Doesn’t make it any better, but makes me feel slightly less disillusioned!
I don’t know what his recent stuff has actually been like - seems like it’s a bit of a Roschach test - and I do know he turned down some approaches from the far right
but there were more SA things that came out, weren’t there? and yeah, seems he was always a bit of a centrist dick beneath it all