It's as simple as he likes authoritarians like Putin, Orban, Jong Un because he's used to not being told no and hates the concept. He literally kept a collection of Hitler's speeches by his bedside.

Jesus
He also seems to have let a sex trafficking brother duo fly into the USA, to escape justice in Romania.
The US put pressure on Romania.

Turns out the sex abusers donated to his campaign.

Is this guy just a mobster now?

I'm incredibly conflicted on what to think about politics at the broadest level.

On the one hand it feels like nothing ever has any real effect. The sheer volume of atrocity from Republicans last go around, and farce during the election would have disqualified them several times over in decades past, but doesn't move the needle at all now.

At the same time, it is a core belief for me that people do change their opinions, and there is a little evidence of that in different arenas over time. The most obvious one isn't a positive one, but it's still evidence. Whatever the right-wing propaganda machine sets it sights on ends up, over time, shifting the Republican base heavily against that thing, and dragging along a small amount of people outside the bubble who get taken in by the misleading framing of whatever issue it is.

I think the key is bombardment. They need to not read a story once, but a hundred times over. Then it starts to matter. So almost everything will just get moved on from in a day or two and be forgotten. But things like grocery prices and gas prices, news loves to make those stories, and they see them repeatedly in their own lives. And the conservative hate machine knows how to be creepy obsessive weirdos, so people in those circles do see certain things over and over and over and over.

The above wasn't a description of what ought be, but what is. What drives change in the voting population in the current political environment. And presently very little moves the needle. The one thing that clearly does, at least on an individual position, is constant visibility and messaging.

But if we're talking correctness, virtually every Republican political position is objectively wrong. Like, entirely contrary to available evidence and reality. Now, Republican voters don't necessarily fully align with Republican politicians -- as minimum wage increases, various gun control measures, legalization, abortion rights all poll well above Democratic success at the polls, but none of those are things that Republican politicians support, so...

I don't view anyone as evil, because I don't think that's a useful term. But every Republican voter is actively a bigot in their voting habits at this point, even if they aren't slinging slurs in their every day life. You simply cannot vote for a campaign that was entirely based on demonizing two groups of minorities and not have that reflect on you in any way. That doesn't mean irredeemable, just that their actions are enabling hate. Many are victims of political manipulation, certainly, but that doesn't also dismiss their personal responsibility.

Something does need to change. And that involves moving opinions one way or another. I don't think anyone has a great answer on how to best do that. I'm certainly not proposing a mirror of the right, replete with misinformation and lies. But I do think something that does need to happen is a counter-narrative that reaches much more broadly and with much higher frequency.