I feel that rather under-states things in Trump's favor. > [As a polarizing figure] He has no choice but to value loyalty over competency Technically true, bu

I feel that rather under-states things in Trump's favor. > [As a polarizing figure] He has no choice but to value loyalty over competency Technically true, but importantly the kind of "polarization" has nothing to do with partisan politics, it is self-generated by his own actions, and his problems retaining competent people are wayyy older than his 2015 entry into the Republican primaries. He values "loyalty" because he needs people who aren't going to refuse or turn him in when he wants to break the law. A fair number have been convicted of it, like his CFO Weisselberg or his personal lawyer Michael Cohen. > He's betting tariffs will benefit US manufacturing No, he believes a trade-deficit means the US is "losing" profit to another country which is taking the value of trade. He's imposing new taxes onto the American people because that's a readily-available lever for him to pull, as he extorts those other countries for favors. (He was even impeached for soliciting such favors before.) > He's betting crippling universities and NIH/NSF and such will fix science somehow I've never heard Trump even make the claim that the quality of US science and R&D needed fixing, and none of his recent actions are consistent with that explanation. Instead, every illegal impoundment of federal funds can be traced to things like naive keyword searches for "diversity" or "women", or trying to punish/extort universities over DEI policies and transgender-athletes. Columbia's recent "academic receivership" has nothing to do with science. Further evidence for this non-science motivation comes from how his administration started targeting people for their political views (i.e. violation of the First Amendment) to deport both permanent residents ("green-card" holders) and foreign students on valid visas.