Comment by jart

Trump is a populist. Populism is sort of like an advertiser being surprised when he discovers that sex sells even though no one ever talks about it. The ultimate trump card in modern politics is to pander to those sorts of predilections. One of the responsibilities of the ruling class is to temper many of the primal instincts that people have, which requires handing out bitter medicine. But that only works if everyone in the ruling class agrees. If one elite breaks the consensus and chooses betrayal in this prisoner's dilemma and survives, then he instantly wins the popularity game. That's why it's called populism.