Here’s the extension of my spite theory. When Trump tells reporters he “doesn’t care about polling,” I don’t hear a man liberated from public opinion. I hear a man narrowing the definition of “the people” to “the people who are loyal to me.” That’s a big difference.

Trump isn’t a doctrinal true believer in the way Clinton-era Democrats were true believers about policy, institutions, and public persuasion. He’s an opportunist who follows leverage, applause, and dominance. His deepest grievance is betrayal, especially betrayal from inside the tent.

Now you’ve got a visible schism: the “America First” flank treating him like he’s been captured (by Israel, by the security state, by the foreign-policy machine, whatever the accusation is). At the same time, the deportation industrial push that was supposed to be his domestic momentum engine has run into friction and optics. It got too real. The public didn’t react the way the pitch promised. The energy that was supposed to look like strength started to look like chaos, cruelty, or incompetence depending on the viewer.

So he does what he always does when the audience stops clapping: he changes stages. Foreign escalation is the ultimate stage change. It creates a “serious” frame, swallows the news cycle, and kicks off massive spending rhythms: munitions, replacements, logistics, contractor surge, reserve activation, intelligence churn, the whole national-security weather system. It also produces the kind of volatility that markets and insiders can surf, while letting him claim he’s acting decisively regardless of what polls say.

That “I don’t care” line is the tell. It’s not that he’s above public opinion. It’s that he’s willing to burn relationships, even with parts of his base, if they stop feeding him the only currency he respects: loyalty and deference. If his original lane no longer delivers that, he pivots hard to the lane that can.

Momentum over consent. Loyalty over popularity. Spite over stability.