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True, consider the Tories in the UK and Liberals in Australia. Both are ostensibly conservative parties, both are fully committed to mass migration, the energy transition and so on. If there's one thing the Tories are 'for', it's Universal Boomer Income, the triple-lock on pensions subsidizing senescence. They promised to take control of migration, won an election victory and then raised it significantly. And they let the NGO-deep state blob run the rest of society. Hopefully the Tories dissolve entirely, nothing of value would be lost.
I think the problem with Trump is that he needs to be destructive in order to break the power of the NGO-deep state blob, in this case the judges. I was at lunch with an American law professor some time ago who was wistfully imagining a world where the Democrats decided to run on a platform so popular they'd just dare the judges to block them and if so... expand the court! Break them! He told us that he often asked his students about the consequences of their marvellous plans to use state power to achieve some goal, what if the other side got in power and used the power to their ends? Students used to realise this and come out with a renewed perspective on compromise. About a decade ago they started coming to a different conclusion: 'it'll be tough but we'll fight back and win eventually'. Restraint is for suckers. Even the professor seemed to have changed his mind on this.
The same logic applies for Trump. Deporting illegal immigrants is his big thing, he did win the election, he should probably have devoted his efforts to that rather than schizo tariff wars. Break the will of the courts on the most advantageous battlefield you can find, don't fight on unfavourable battlefields.
But as usual with Trump, his destructive energies are not tightly focused on the right targets in order of priority.
You absolutely can have a positive vision of 'safe streets', 'cheap energy' 'nation-state not economic zone' 'peace through strength' and that would be pretty popular. But without the confidence to pursue it, they're just words.
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