Are you under the impression that I'm a Republican, much less a Trump supporter? I'm not trying to defend Trump, I loathe him and I sincerely hope he goes to jail for the January 6th riot, because that set an extremely dangerous precedent. At the same time, facts are facts.

The money printer kicked in specifically due to COVID. Before that Trump gave some big tax breaks to corporations, as well as an offshore-tax amnesty. You can definitely be mad at him for that, but it wasn't paid for with newly-minted money.

If Trump is shown to have abused minors with Epstein, that's another very good reason to put him in jail. But Epstein did his best to rub shoulders with the rich & famous, and pedophilia is not an airborne disease, so the fact that some rich or famous person is associated with him in some way is not sufficient proof to me that they're a pedophile. If somebody in my neighborhood was convicted as a pedophile, I wouldn't immediately assume that everybody who ever hitched a ride with him or went to see the superbowl at his place was also a pedophile.

I would agree that 'populist' pretty much means 'con-man'. It's somebody who basically says: Everything that's wrong with the world, and your life specifically, is somebody else's fault! You people are great, you're the real salt of the earth, keep doing exactly what you're doing! Vote for me and I'll make things better for you and worse for everybody you don't like! Anybody who suggests there's more nuance to the situation is your enemy!

Tucker Carlson is 100% a populist.

The mainstream Republican party of the post-Bush years was never really populist, because they kinda loathed their own voters too much for that. They'd pander, but their heart wasn't in it. The big schism in the party today is basically between the new populists and the old elitists...which is pretty much the state of the Democratic party as well.