[ethbr1]

The most surprising thing about watching the Trump trainwreck has been in how spineless he is about any personal ideological conviction.

He cares about perceptions of him. He cares about power and money.

But past that it's literally... whoever was last in the room with him. Which in this case was obviously Palantir. And 50 days ago was Hegseth.

[kasey_junk]

Why is that surprising? He’s been that way on the public stage for 40 years. What’s surprising is his base popularity hasn’t moved at all. He’s giving a fair chunk of the population what they want.

[tclancy]

>He’s giving a fair chunk of the population what they want.

That would be upsetting if so. I feel the far more frightening thing is he is telling a large swath of people who don't know what they want, what they want. And then delivering that. So it could be literally anything.

[mindslight]

Because the only thing they really want is validation of their unserious world view, and their frustration that results from it. Trump's thrashing around without a coherent plan and [inevitably] making our position worse mirrors their own existence.

[khuey]

The only remotely ideological conviction he has is "trade bad, tariffs good".

[unethical_ban]

It was his selling point. The people who voted for him don't care that he has no ideological conviction. They like that he is instinctively against "liberals". It just so happens that those are the people giving him less money and groveling.

The low-brow term for this is "owning the libs", but I believe it's really what's happening. It doesn't matter his personal moral failures or inconsistency, as long as he sets back social progress.

[ethbr1]

That feels like too reductive of a distillation and conveniently excises the necessity of examining his supporters' grievances for legitimate ones.

He was elected by a broad coalition of conservative-ish stakeholders, many of whom had very coherent and enunciated goals.