Trump’s brand is pure pulp fiction. In these novels omnipotent, omnicompetent, obsessively autonomous heroes define encounters. Everything is a zero sum game. Life is simple. The adored hero wins and the other guy is humiliated.
Trump’s current dilemma is that Iran holds absolute power to strangle the world and American economy, which doesn't fit his story line. America, not Iran, ends up with zero in the Hormuz zero sum showdown.
Trump sold himself as the simplistic brutal solution to America’s problems. He could muster followers because the gunslinger model, the brutal war lord has been sold over and over again by American culture as the path to manhood and success. Trump cast himself as the hero, the Jason Bourne, the Mandalorian, Jack Reacher, Sam Spade, the Godfather. Video games, the entertainment industry, podcasts are awash in a vision of male dominance. The most extreme end has fed the White Supremacists. These are our cultural stories.