I think it's foolish to presume Donald Trump has "beliefs." The man is as transactional as it comes and so disinterested in external knowledge that Samantha Bee can make a credible argument that he is illiterate. There's a passage in Mary Trump's book in which she, a girl under ten, watches a young Donald come home from freshman year at college, open the refrigerator in the servants' kitchen, pull out a stick of butter, unwrap it and eat it like a candy bar, his eyes never leaving the inside of the fridge.

True story? We'll never know. But the people I know who have worked with Donald Trump - been on the plane, been in the penthouse - describe a man with a singular interest in his perceived level of influence. He wanted a wall because China has a wall. He wants Greenland because it's big on a map. If you examine the extended, historical policy positions of Donald Trump, they have been "acquire things and write 'Trump' on them" followed by "diffuse responsibility for failed gambits." That's it. That's the sum total of the man's contribution to society.

Trump's first appearances as a media personality are as parody. He has been that guy from the drop:

So what you're left with are people who can advance their own agenda through puffery. You're absolutely right in that everyone of any power or influence is looking to MBS. But I think only MBS is savvy enough to maintain his independence by (A) going through Kushner, whom is far easier and cheaper to flatter (B) acting tough in defiance. The rest of them are just trying to protect their money.

Nobody around Trump has the independence to challenge him in any real way. That's by design. So what we're left with is a bunch of lickspittles playing I Got Mine. There's nothing deeper than that. Down to the shitfucks from Project 2025, they're all playing Personal Agenda Advancement with a venal old man who probably doesn't know how to read.