He doesn't deserve that much credit. He's just an asshole flailing about from a position of unearned privilege and ego

I don't think that's true. Trump, his administration, and the MAGA movement are fascists, not idiots. Fascism is an ideology that sees the problems of capitalism through the lenses of idealism and nationalism. They believe society can only be fixed by a visionary leader unencumbered by traditional limits on power. They don't see class conflict. Instead they see national conflict as the source of societal issues.

When the Nazis were overheating their economy in order to aggressively re-arm, their economic minister proposed some sensible fiscal policy to cool things off. However, these policies would slow the re-armament, so he was fired because he didn't have the willpower to do what needed to be done. In the end, the only way to keep getting the resources needed to keep building the war machine was to invade Poland.

This is the ideology that leads you to devalue international cooperation and instead see other nations as rivals to be dominated. Fascism won't be defeated by calling them stupid. Instead it comes from showing people that the problems of society come from class conflict.

I know you weren't trying to give some big analysis of Trump's ideology. But I can't resist an opportunity to infodump.