I think he’s inept, stupid, and doesn’t have a plan or idea about what he’s doing. Tariffs, eg, are the polar opposite of what he claims.

Hard disagree on this one. Your example is the perfect illustration- he doesn’t engage with reality on tariffs, he’s painted a picture for people on how amazing they are that even genuine tariff advocates never would.

He had some of the best resources available to him and has probably been told many times about the reality. The language he uses intentionally misleads, and literally no honest tariff advocate would talk about it being a reliable revenue source like he does, the intention is for it to be sufficiently disruptive that over time it will cause imports to drop. He also made people think that the other country pays the tax which is easily disproven if you do even the most basic research into how they work. Being a “tax on a foreign country” is such an obvious lie that it would take an inhuman amount of charitability to ever thing he is being genuine.

He knows exactly what he’s doing- targetting the lowest common denominator with lies.