He promised to "Make America Great Again." He created a movement around this idea, yet inevitably embraced the ideas of his political enemies. Trump continued to sell himself to foreign engagements, he banned bump stocks, ramped up the national debt by $7 trillion, and allowed the country to be locked up for months in response to COVID, destroying the economy and dooming the same small businesses he claimed to represent.

As Jordan Peterson says, "We have to give the devil his dues." Trump had his good effects and minor wins. Trump's election was a repudiation of the Bushes, Cheneys, Clintons, and McCains of the world. It is now acceptable to hate George H.W., George W., and Jeb Bush as neo-conservative warhawks. Furthermore, he also offered small tax breaks and cuts for businesses of all sizes, reducing the plunder of the state. Trump signed into law a bill to slightly improve the justice system, albeit not to libertarian standards. But Trump and the populist right cite a problem, as well as acting as a symptom of a problem, that they have no clue how to fix or understand the root causes of it.

Many of the problems that conservatives cite may be legitimate ones. A generation has been raised that they may never know the American dream. They may never be able to own homes with evergrowing home prices, bundled down with loan debt, from being pushed into colleges with useless degrees, and the ever looming threat of losing loved ones to economic failures and war. Manufacturing has been lost to America, with a consumerist debt ridden society taking its place, beholden to the whims of political figures. Americans sit uncertain and frustrated, so much so that they made the choice to elect Donald J. Trump as a proverbial middle finger to establishment politics.