The American Dream is different for different people. For people like Trump, it looks very much like: you stumble on a money pit, and then you sit back while the shekels roll in, and spend all your time bolstering up your public image.
This works---and had worked---for many of us; the easiest way was to get money from the land. Farming was too painful. But hiring a lot of poor people to dig coal out of the ground was a good idea. (Those who worked the mines took all the risk.) Cutting down trees was another good one, especially if there was a boom in housing construction. Once they started mass-producing cars, they needed steel. There were iron mines, which made some people rich. Then there was oil. And gas.
Then there was the Stock Market! Then there was Real Estate!
Then there was the Great Depression. Then there were the Wars. (Some people got rich from the wars.)
Then, there was a change. Young people began to travel outside the US, and began to get strange new ideas about equality. They seemed to think that not just White Americans, but everyone, even the women, deserved a share of the power and the wealth.
They also seemed to think that it was important to keep the air, the water, and the land clean. They got into Congress, and then into the Senate. They studied science, and what sorts of things polluted the environment. Soon, the Money Specialists, who had focused on how to get the most rent out of poor tenants, and how to get the most suckers into the casinos, looked up, and all they could see was these people--who looked like low-budget communists to them---making rules that got in the way of duping customers. It wasn't enough to sell people soda; people wanted to know how much sugar there was in the damn soda.
These people were aghast at all the roadblocks that the Democrats were throwing up in the way of easy profits, and wanted to make America safe for unscrupulous businessmen again.
Let's talk about America and The World. There was a certain time in which American Idealism was a refreshing contrast to the cynicism of the Old World. Anyone who had a good idea would be sneered at everywhere except in the US. There was a time when an inventor would be given a fair chance in the USA. There was a time when someone with a grievance would get a fair hearing in the USA. Side-by-side with the capitalists with tunnel vision, were friendly folk who were not suspicious of people, as long as they were confident you were not one of those horrible communists. This was the time that the Alt-Right looks back at with longing; the US would frown on the shenanigans of some countries, and was eager to take leadership in any new project. We were No. 1.
Soon those awful Democrats turned around to look at what was going on in the US itself, and began passing legislation faster than ever; Social Security, and Medicare, and Equal Rights, and Handicap Accessibility, and Unisex Toilets, and Gay Marriage, and the decriminalization of abortion, and lots of people wanted things back the way they used to be.
But the things that really made America great are probably not the things that the Alt-Right think made America great. The things that Trump urges those at his rallies to do are not the things that ennobled the USA in the eyes of the world.
Trump knows this perfectly well. All he wants is for his ardent followers to imagine that the things Trump wants do make America great. It is a hoax. A lot of what Trump engineers are little hoaxes, and they're hoaxes on his own people. This is probably why when some of his assistants get tired of what goes on in the White House, leave the fold, and make such an about-face.
How much do Trump's nominees to the Supreme Court see through Trump's hypocrisy? How much are they committed to altruistic ideals?
Does American need to be No. 1 in everything to regain the respect of the world, and a position of leadership---to some degree---among the nations of the world? I think that depends on whether they can trust the US to be impartial, and to keep our word.
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