The *core* beef with populist leaders worldwide IMO, is that they are essentially uncouth, low class. Elites loved Obama because he spoke and joked like them, the practiced self-deprecation, the vocabulary he used, the refined tone. He was one of them.

Trump is openly boastful (very low class), has gaudy taste, eats McDonalds, doesn't use the words and tone that comforts the educated.

Imagine getting into debt for a worthless degree, making less money than the plumber or electrician and only having *status* to show for it. Even though you were duped, even though you are totally replaceable and live at the whims of your corporate overlords, at least you know the right protocols and pronouns to navigate elite discourse.

You have no material benefit, but at least you are *superior* so you've been told. You are *righteous* and *good*. You are not *racist* or *misogynistic* or *transphobic*. You get a pat on the back from the powerful.

Suddenly this person comes along who gives zero fucks about any of that, whose ascendance is counterfeiting your status payoff entirely. Even though you got screwed in a real and material way by the very elites you servilely aspire to join, you are in denial of this, and the meager status boost was keeping that denial at bay. But now this guy comes along, and you're faced with the pointlessness of your entire endeavor, the shallowness around which your entire identity was built.

Of course, they hate Trump and the other populists who are exposing them to the catastrophic self-betrayal.