The fundamental difficulty in assessing Trump is that there has been a wide disconnect between his bombastic rhetoric and his actual actions. At least that was the case from 2017-2020. January 6th saw his actions match his threats. Those of us paying attention noted that Trump's main lesson from his first go 'round was that he was thwarted by the "deep state" and needed loyalists and sycophants to enact his malevolent will.
The result was the myriad pieces we see today about people who voted for Trump to "secure our borders" but assume that he isn't going to actually deport Jose, because Jose is a good dude and not one of the "bad ones".
At the business elite level, the assumption was that the tariffs were just more bluster.
That might not be true. He might actually go through with his trade wars.
The response to many of us after the shocking result on Election Night - more shocking in many ways than 8 years prior - was, "OK, you've fucked around, time to find out."
If Trump really goes through with his two most important ideas - tariffs and deportations - then we will be firmly in the "find out" phase for all those salt of the earth, common clay of the New West who thinks he's going to be good for them, because he will run the country like one of his businesses.
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