Understanding How Trump Operates

Adapted from a Twitter post by me on 10/25/24

Everything about Trump and the way he thinks comes down to the Deal.

Even though his book The Art of the Deal was ghostwritten, the second chapter "Elements of the Deal" undoubtedly come from the man himself.  He breaks these down as:

- Think Big

- Protect the Downside (& the upside will take care of itself)

- Maximize Your Options

- Know Your Market

- Use Your Leverage

- Enhance Your Location

- Get the Word Out

- Fight Back

- Deliver the Goods

- Contain the Costs

- Have Fun

For all the people in the nationalist movement and adjacent to it, who seem to admire or even worship Trump, very few have taken the time to study these principles and how he applies them in politics.  Trump is a political genius, but he's not an ideologue at all—he doesn't have principles in the ideological or ethical sense of the word.  What he has is a modus operandi that he applies consistently and to deadly effect, which his enemies have never been able to figure out how to counter effectively, and even many of his allies fail to grasp.

Everything he does and the way he thinks can be explained by how he applies these operating principles.  Trump sees powers and interests in America and in the world, and he "deals" with them on the basis of his leverage and their leverage over him.

The fact that Trump seems to promise everything to everyone and, for instance, never sides completely with neocons over paleocons, or paleocons over neocons, is an example of "Maximize Your Options." Serving fries at McDonald's is an example of "Know Your Market"—he knows who his target voters are and how to appeal to them.  The same goes for when he visits the Rebbe's grave: he's appealing to his target donors and backers.

His penchant for doing controversial things that attract publicity and drive the news cycle towards himself is an example of "Get the Word Out." The fact that he has figured out how to tap into the mass enthusiasm of the long-suffering White masses without spending a huge amount on advertising or traditional political consulting is an example of "Control the Costs."

"Use Your Leverage" is his ultimate deal-making insight, and this is something he deploys powerfully, all the time.  He knows no other elites in America will stand up for White people and they are desperate for a champion, so that's leverage he has over them.  He knows powerful, rich Jews need to enlist White people to prop up their financial domination and Zionism, the fact that he alone can inspire that enthusiasm in White people (and a figure like Michael Bloomberg, for example, never could) is leverage he has with Jews.  Trump learned the lesson from losing to Pat Buchanan in 2000 that there was a huge, untapped base of frustrated White populism and nationalism in America that no Republican was willing to touch, and he picked it up at a steal.

This is why, when White people in the hinterland worship Trump and are willing to serve him and die for him, he takes it for granted and he doesn't value their loyalty.  Trump doesn't think in terms of loyalty, he thinks in terms of leverage, so a common person who has pledged blind loyalty to him has lost all leverage over him.  Meanwhile, a Jewish billionaire who is 9/10ths hostile to Trump, he will still respect because that person has leverage.  This is why he leaned into White populism and nationalism to win the 2016 Republican primary, then immediately pivoted to catering to the establishment Republican Party elites.  He didn't need the leverage of GOP primary voters anymore, he had that group locked down, but what he did need was support of the old GOP establishment to win the general election.

This is also why Trump constantly leans into more LGBTQ+ voters, more Black voters, more Hispanic voters.  It isn't so much that he is ideologically anti-White (neither is he ideologically pro-White), as he needs the leverage that those traditional Democratic voting blocs would give him and he doesn't need Whites.  Trump doesn't lean into White nationalism not because he's ideologically opposed to it, but because all that could do is hurt his leverage with the powerful anti-White elites who rule the country.  Right now he's signaling a bit in that direction, because he needs WN enthusiasm to cross the finish line.  The instant he's back in, even if he has record turnout from White working class voters, he's going to credit his victory to Blacks and other minorities because that was the group holding out, and stealing them away from Kamala would be the ultimate act of undercutting her leverage.

He is a supreme pragmatist, a businessman, a capitalist and a showman. If you want to influence Trump, the worst thing you can do is come at him from a position of weakness. He only respects and deals with strength. In many ways, his way of operating should be familiar to anyone who understands the Red Pill tropes about women. "Trump hypergamy" is a thing, Trump "monkeybranches" constantly and any poor fool who has "oneitis" for Trump is going to be rapidly used, cheated on and left behind. The people he respects most of all are other billionaires and people who are more powerful than him, and this will never change.

Original Post: https://x.com/Ahab4K/status/1850023748599984401