The Tragic Myth of Trump as a "Populist": 8 Policies The VAST Majority of Americans Agree On
Now’s the chance for MAGA supporters to hold his feet to the fire and make sure he delivers on his decade of promises.
While "They're eating the dogs" may have been the most infamous lie of the 2024 election campaign, the most blatantly wrong (and overall damaging) lie was the presentation of Trump as a populist, in my opinion.
Oxford defines a "populist" as a person, especially a politician, who strives to appeal to ordinary people who feel that their concerns are disregarded by established elite groups. God and everybody else knows that Trump certainly *talks* like a populist, but his actions have NEVER been meant to benefit US peasants.
Regarding populism, Encyclopedia Brittanica notes the following:
In the United States the term was applied to the program of the Populist Movement, which gave rise to the Populist, or People’s, Party in 1892. Many of the party’s demands were later adopted as laws or constitutional amendments (e.g., a progressive tax system). The populist demand for direct democracy through popular initiatives and referenda also become a reality in a number of U.S. states.
As you read keep reading, consider whether you've ever heard Donald Trump talk about these policies before, what he said... and whether you think he'd actually fight to pass them.
8 Policies The VAST Majority of Americans Agree On
87% of Americans support Term Limits (Pew, Sept 2023)
To be as fair as I possibly can, term limits are much more complicated to implement in practice than in theory (as all things are); for example, there is an argument at the Supreme Court which suggests Congress cannot simply impose term limits on itself, even by law, so a Constitutional Amendment would likely be necessary to achieve it for Congress. NPR has a great pros and cons explainer on this; personally, I still land on getting it done. Given the trust levels that Congress and the Supreme Court have earned, combined with the clear will of We The People, it's a bit insulting that it hasn't been done yet...
79% support maximum age limits in Gov (Pew, Sept 2023)
There's also no clear argument about why it would be unfair, considering we already have minimum age limits inscribed in the Constitution.
85% of Americans support paid parental family, medical leave (Lake Research Partners, Nov 2023)
The health benefits of paid parental leave cannot be overstated, from better healing for Mom to better attachment between Father and baby, to better outcomes for baby overall; the United States is the last developed country worldwide without this social service, and it's an insult to our citizens.
89% of Americans want Congress to achieve more affordable childcare (New Bridge Strategy [R] and Hart Research [D], May 2024)
Have we heard anything about this? Do you think the gutting of federal government will get us closer to this goal? I would be surprised if it's brought up in the next 4 years at all.
89% percent believe medical marijuana should be legal, with 57% for recreational as well (Pew, March 2024)
Respectfully, we're all bored with Googling every time we cross state lines; the people have spoken.
79% of Americans support raising taxes on wealthy individuals, including 63% of people who voted for Trump in 2020 (Navigator Research, Feb 2024)
This statistic paints perhaps the best example of the tragedy of populism, propaganda, and misinformation that put our current president back in the Oval Office; they voted against their own stated interests. Not only is Trump going to do the exact opposite; if he has it his way, it's going to be the biggest tax cut in history and exacerbate wealth inequality… bigly.
75% of Americans support raising taxes on big corporations (Navigator Research, Feb 2024)
I AM NO EXPERT: that said, it feels like this, combined with the tariffs, is a real double whammy for working people. Businesses will raise their prices because tariffs are imposed, which passes to the consumer, but they're gonna get a huge tax cut at the same time, which will increase wealth inequality. I’m genuinely surprised working Republicans are okay with it
77% of Americans have little or no trust in leaders of social media companies to publicly admit mistakes and take responsibility for data misuse (Pew, Oct 2023)
And Trump is besties with all of them now! What do you think are the chances that Trump will ask his lil tech oligarchy friends to spy on us less than they do currently? In a landscape where one must choose their battles, it might be best to just shelve this one until 2028 now too… then again, if Elon keeps sifting through all our tax records, maybe we might just move this one up the priorities list.
Bottom Line
More than anyone else now, it is MAGA supporters who have the most power to effect Donald Trump’s decisions on these vastly popular policies; both he and Elon Musk (or Dlon Mump, as I like to call the new President [they/them]) seem to care very much about how their core base is feeling. I would say that the market could affect these policies too, but frankly, the market has never moved the needle on these policies before. We know Republicans, and Dlon Mump in particular, don’t give a hoot about what the Democrats think, so as crazy as it sounds… I’ve got my hopes up for MAGA supporters to finally hold their leader accountable. It’s his last term and (unless he plans for the secession of California or some shit) he’s not going to run in 2028. Now’s your chance to hold his feet to the fire and make sure he delivers on his decade of promises to you. You won’t have another after this.
See if you can pick his brain about the stuff YOU care about, sometime between his monologues about making Canada the 51st state and Gaza the ‘Riviera of the Middle East’.
Populism is a gateway drug to authoritarianism.
Great piece, Brie. I started reading your blog after you became a referrer of mine, and I figured I’d take a moment to respond to this one.
The obvious question is—if all these policies are so wildly popular, why don’t we even discuss them seriously?
Well… welcome to the Illusion of Democracy.
Gerrymandering, how bills move through Congress, and the structural nature of the Senate all favor elites over populist policies. These systems give disproportionate power to smaller, highly organized interest groups—like AIPAC, the Heritage Foundation, corporate donors, and entrenched industries. So even when 80% of Americans support something—like legal weed—Congress isn’t incentivized to act unless a powerful, well-funded lobby pushes for it.
Take weed as a case study. It took 100 years of public whining before states started legalizing it. And even then, it wasn’t the whining that did it—it was budget shortfalls. States needed money, and taxing weed was an easy fix. At the federal level? There’s no "doob lobby" with the cash or political muscle to force Congress’s hand. Now, if weed delivery got an app and went viral—which I’d call Duber—and it was backed by China? Maybe then we’d see some movement.
The second big issue is this: Politics isn’t about solving problems—it’s about winning elections.
There’s an incentive never to fix things. No politician gets elected by saying, "Hey, I totally fixed this! Everything’s great now!" Have you ever heard that in a campaign speech? Of course not. The game is always about the next problem, the next crisis, and the next stock to buy in on. It’s Matthew McConaughey in Wolf of Wall Street. If one party solved healthcare, or prescription drug prices, or universal basic income, they’d lose that as a wedge issue. Instead, we get incremental half-measures, because there always has to be another hill to climb.
Then we get to the structural and procedural hurdles.
Polarization: One side is normal; the other side is completely bonkers-ass Nazi. Flip it the other way, the Nazis think they're restoring America to some 1950s idyllic condition, Democrats are Commies. As long as that's the case - compromise is impossible. No compromise, no bills get passed.
Industry capture: DOGE is off the rails. Elon Musk should have zero access to government while he’s running multiple companies with government contracts. Full stop.
Filibusters and cloture: Most people don’t realize that in the Senate, no cloture = no vote. That’s how bills die before they even get debated.
So even if MAGA wasn’t actively trying to burn the place down, it probably wouldn’t matter much. The only way anything changes is if enough people who don’t want the world to burn break away from MAGA and apply relentless, unified pressure on Congress.
That’s the real battle. It’s not about getting a specific policy passed—it’s about creating a political environment where both parties fear the public more than they fear their donors.
And that starts with making them genuinely afraid of losing power.
We don’t need a policy debate. We need 60% of America to wake up and say: "This madness needs to end. Now." If enough voters reach that conclusion, Congress will suddenly find its spine. Because if politicians believe that failing to stand up to Trump and his cronies means getting bounced out of office in 21 months, they’ll cut the "Orange Clown" and his "South African Stooge" loose overnight.
Threaten their jobs, and the system corrects itself real fast.