Ideals don't have to rise to the level of "grand unifying theory" to be meaningful. In fact given how poorly "grand unifying theories" tend to work, the whole point is that ideals sit in a sweet spot of complexity between there and a novel judgement for every new development.
I had an argument to write here, but I'm having a hard time getting it down to something concise and without a lot of inbaked assumptions, so I am just going to turn it into a question. Like, I am really trying to understand the continued support for Trump. I was an unaligned libertarian. I read Moldbug as he was writing. I got it. I disagreed from a philosophic information theoretic perspective (complexity multiplies, Urbit is just another "write once run anywhere"), but I still get the desire.
Then Trump. I totally got 2016 Trump support. The system seemed so entrenched and immutable, at least this guy is shaking things up and talking about real problems. I was the one telling my breathless progressive friends that he was likely to win. "But he's soooo racist" "uh-huh".
But then just the total lack of performance when actually in office? All performance, no execution besides who can be hurt this week? The only commonality I see is "owning the libs" where "the libs" means anyone who doesn't support Dear Leader. It just seems like one big tautology, for a lack of a real constrictive political direction or values.
I really want see where I am wrong, because none of these policies add up to making sense to me. Tariffs that harm our country, phrased in terms as if needing physical goods is somehow a strength? And then not even followed through on ? Attacking our allies for "not paying their share" while they buy into our economic empire and prop up our currency?
I get the populist anger, yes. But anger on its own does not produce good outcomes - in fact, quite the opposite.
I guess my question boils down to - if there are values besides anger, spite, owning the libs, and autocracy, then what exactly are they these days ? I don't mean the old mantras that are brought up to make people frustrated they didn't pan out, and then sidestepped when discussing current policy (like you've done with the deficit here). But the actual values that can be appealed to critique the current path? Heck, phrase it in terms of what would make you see a different candidate as even better than Trump.
Because like, for example:
> I think it will be bad for society to encourage greater race and ethnic consciousness in a diverse society
I agree with this. I don't call it "reverse racism", I just call it "racism" - a focus on collectivism in terms of group identity. But what I see in Trumpism isn't a repudiation of that general racism, but rather continued escalation of the dynamic merely with the "other side" winning. But I feel like if I tried to flesh that argument out by appealing to what you threw out as a supposed value, then I'm just going to run into a different newly-conjured value that overrides the first - in other words, rationalizations rather than actual values.
But please point out where I am wrong.