Not at all—more lucrative to say what people want to hear, raise a bunch of money, and lose, than it is to get in office and need to violate your campaign promises to appease the donors with steering influence.

https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/s-ha...

Yes, this. Ideologies follow demographics of likely voters, that's it. They're the worm on the hook, not the objective.

> he makes no attempt to hide that

Does he not? His speeches promise a "great America again!" to the conned masses, when the reality it's "Put me back into power so I can stay out of jail, and grift, for another 4 years at least.".

It would be interesting if one could put an actual "what I actually want" translator next to Trump like in this sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkAK9QRe4ds .. not that the conned masses would hear it and get a "Wow! He's a conman!" moment; they've projected onto him their hopes, dreams, and the idea that he will be the one to avenge their angers.

(BTW In Obama's post-presidential book he lamented about the same thing in 2008, that his voters were placing their hopes of all sorts of change on him, and that his campaign/supporters were inadvertendly creating cult-of-personality around him.)

> In Obama's post-presidential book he lamented about the same thing in 2008, that his voters were placing their hopes of all sorts of change on him

I wonder why they did that. It's almost like he built his entire campaign on the promise that electing him would bring hope/change.

I get it’s threading the needle and people en masse aren’t going to understand nuance, but I don’t think his point was that electing him would bring hope/change, I think it was a call for America to remember it can change.

I don’t think “I have faith we can change but don’t put your faith in me” has the same ring to it as a campaign slogan.