Trump’s authoritarianism appeals to people who feel that he can control the various unelected people they feel have too much power over their lives and society: career bureaucrats, corporate HE, NGOs, universities, etc.
Remember the 2017 “Resistance” against Trump? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/resistance-from-with....
This revealed that no matter which party wins the election, the fourth branch of government is staffed and run by Democrats. All the three letter agencies are staffed by 95% Democrats. And people think that Trump can bring them to heel.
[Citation Needed]
I’ll add many federal employees are members of professional organizations. And in the last decade, professional organizations have become overtly political. And all of these are staffed mainly by democrats. Paul Clement, one of the leading Supreme Court advocates of our generation, left Kirkland, known as a conservative firm, over the firms opposition to second amendment cases: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/2022/06/23/kirkland-ellis.... This is a firm that will not hesitate to represent the worst Russian oligarchs, mass polluters like BP, etc.
Another example is SFFA. A super-majority of the public opposes racial preferences in college admissions and hiring. But not a single prominent law firm authored an amicus brief in support of overturning affirmative action.
Half the country doesn’t trust credentialed professionals anymore, and with good reason
From your article, that sounds more like close to even instead of your exaggerated 95%.
I trust credentialed people for providing facts and research in their domain, not writing policies.
Being able to do what you want, so long as you “kiss the ring” has unfortunately been a reliable path to temporary and virtueless power
Unless the non-activist citizen votes to give their power to the most virtuous, they generally default to giving away power to someone they believe will ultimately give them priority with the least amount of impact to their core personality trait