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Lately, Donald Trump has been looking for “love” in all the wrong places. Instead of focusing on competitive states, he has gone to previously solid red states. In Mobile, Alabama, he seemed almost pleading for support. It resembled more a farewell tour than an aggressive appeal for votes. He scarcely recognizes the loyalist candidates he is supposed to support. It is not "I need him back in Washington," but more like he is nice -- whatever.
Contrition is not Trump’s style; he has not done it, exactly, but his remarks that he has failed to properly explain his record are as close as he gets to an apology. He uses the word "love" a lot, but it seems awkward coming from the President’s mouth. Tiny Tim, he is not. To expect “God bless us, everyone” is too much. Apologia, a MEA CULPA, these are foreign concepts to the Donald. He resembles Josef Stalin in his claims of achievement. When famine broke out in 1930, he claimed that in Russia he “was dizzy with success”. Well, industrial production had increased statistically, but at a considerable cost.
This living in the confines of his head has not worked. Trump refuses to acknowledge that affordability is a problem. Indeed, he feels as though the people have somehow been put under a spell by his critics. Mention data centers; he fails to recognize that people are not miffed with every aspect of Artificial Intelligence, which Mr. Wizard dubs “Super intelligence,” but with important particulars. Overuse of water supplies, disruption of rural life, and its related environmental problems do not register with Trump. He seems to conflate AI centers with steel factories. AI is not that labor-intensive; it is more managerial and maintenance. The industry is higher-end than the lunch-bucket image Trump seems to believe it is. And it appeals more to high-end investors, and there in lies the rub. Recently, Trump has been fawning over big tech giants at dinners and lunches. These people have no affordability problems and do have a lot of business with the federal government. The new bosses of this most recent gilded age are Trump’s best buddies.
From the beginning of his second term, he has listened more to Elon Musk than Stephen Bannon. From foreign policy to Project 2025, this administration has catered to the super wealthy. MAGA is a memory and plays no role in Trump’s “golden age.” The Trump of “high tariffs,” unless they are on Canada, is slowly coming to an end.
The dinners and the courting of the already haves go back a long way in American history. On October 29, 1884, at New York’s famed Delmonico’s, Republican nominee James G. Blaine treated his illustrious guests, which included every “robber baron” in the United States. Among the lucky were Cornelius “Law, hain't I got the power” Vanderbilt and Jay Gould, a man who tried to corner the gold market in 1869. The crypto boys and the tech giants of Trump’s era would understand the august crowd at Delmonico’s assembled in 1884. But in this economy, Trump’s affection for the rich and his building projects no longer pleases the public. Blaine was also feasting with the “money kings” during an economic slump. However, 1884 was a close election, with Grover Cleveland besting Blaine by taking New York. Arguably, though, Blaine ran a shrewder campaign than Trump.
Populism MAGA-style has no real place in this campaign except on the Democratic side. Trump is fully a creature of the super rich, if not all the very wealthy. He shares the ethos and the prejudices of that class. Trump is so money-conscious that he is trying to raffle a ticket to dinner at the White House. This is the year that Trump abandoned Populism without regret or remorse.