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One Big Beautiful Betrayal: Trump’s Cult Members [1]
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Date: 2025-05-25
Trump ran as a populist, claiming to represent “the people” against a perceived corrupt elite he painted as enemies of the nation. For Trump, this enemy list included:
1 The “deep state,” a shadowy network of bureaucrats and intelligence officials;
2 Those he claimed “stole” the 2020 election from him despite losing both the popular and Electoral College votes;
3 The Department of Justice, which brought cases against him for breaking the law, including his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, and which prosecuted—Trump says persecuted—the January 6 rioters, whom he called his “hostages” and pardoned on Day One.
His enemies also included the mainstream media, labeled “the enemy of the people,” establishment Republicans who refused to toe his line, and even military and intelligence leaders who challenged his actions or narratives. In Trump’s version of populism, loyalty to him—not to the Constitution, democratic institutions, or the truth—became the dividing line between “the people” (i.e., MAGA) and everyone else.
Part of his populist rhetoric included the phrase, “I will be your retribution,” which, in practice, translated to “I will be my retribution.”
On April 29, 2025, NPR aired a program marking 100 days of Trump’s second term by listing 100 people and institutions he had already targeted. (Source:
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/29/nx-s1-5379979/trump-has-targeted-more-than-100-opponents-and-institutions-npr-analysis-finds) Two days later, Trump issued an Executive Order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” singling out NPR and PBS—ironically validating NPR’s report.
The enemy count keeps rising—at least one new target per day. This appears to be Trump’s daily ritual, a kind of “demonic practice,” identifying new victims of his insatiable wrath. Recent targets include Beyoncé, Oprah, Bono, and Bruce Springsteen, whom Trump falsely accused of being paid by the Harris campaign for their endorsements. In truth, these artists supported Kamala Harris because they, like many Americans, believed Trump was manifestly unworthy of the presidency.
Despite claiming to champion the “common people,” Trump treats them with thinly veiled disdain. The MAGA faithful may see him as a king, but if that is true, they are his peasants—useful only so long as they feed his ego and political ambitions. In voting for him, they spent much of their political capital. Now, as his popularity fades, he offers them little in return but grievance and spectacle.
Trump was only a populist in style and rhetoric. Most of what he said while campaigning were lies—sweet, pretty lies that his followers consumed and still cling to. It is astounding that someone as entrenched in the elite as Trump—a wealthy, privately educated heir—could convince so many that he was anti-establishment, even as he trampled democratic norms to build his authoritarian power base. He effectively tapped into grievance politics because he is animated by grievance himself, clinging to every perceived slight and rejection. This personal vendetta allowed him to connect with and exploit the discontent of his MAGA base. But the truth is, he doesn’t care about them. They were never “his people”—not in childhood, not in business, and not now.
Where it matters most, Trump is not a populist in substance, policy, or legislation. He is not “one of the people.” He is a right-wing elite, a “poor billionaire” who once embraced liberal views and now pushes authoritarian ones. The only legislation he truly wants in a second term is his “One Big Beautiful Bill.” He plans to do everything else by Executive Order, legal or not. And with the Supreme Court having granted him Presidential immunity, his attacks on the rule of law are already historic in scale. His goal is singular: enrich himself and install himself as America’s first dictator. There may be no need for an unconstitutional third-term run in 2028—if elections are canceled entirely.
Here’s the Big, Beautiful, Disappointing Truth: Trump has utter contempt for the very people his populist image is meant to serve—the common citizen, the MAGA faithful, the bottom 90% of the economic pyramid, the “We the People.”
His slogan, Make America Great Again, is particularly ironic. Nothing he is doing resembles greatness. On the contrary, his actions are dismantling democratic institutions, undermining the rule of law, and corroding the moral core of the republic—for reasons only fully understood by him.
As MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow once said, “Watch what they do, not what they say.” Trump cloaks himself in populist rhetoric but governs like an elitist obsessed with personal power. He channels popular anger with alarming skill, but not to uplift the people—only to tighten his grip on them.
In the end, Trump’s populism was never about the people. It was always about Trump.
Day 126: days left to January 20, 2029: 1,336 days
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