Trump Nation has little tolerance, indeed any interest at all, in ideology, even less with intellectual volleying amongst political scientists. Donald Trump’s commanding poll standing on the cusp of the Iowa caucuses, and the New Hampshire primary, has frightened ideologues, and virtually the entire so-called professional political class.

Both the hard-boiled conservative social, fiscal, and limited government warriors as well as softer right-sided analysts -- more interested in civility, tone, and thoughtful governance/electoral philosophy than the real pulse of voters -- believe either Donald Trump is a menace, or that he’ll lose in a landslide to Hillary/Bernie/whomever.

Donald Trump appeals to an astonishingly wide swath of Americans -- right, left, and middle -- all of whom have dismissed platform and policy. They display no patience for nuance, or apparent complexity. Trump Nation deeply distrusts policy language because policy talk is a cover for cluelessness about transactions.

The current Republican lineup has failed to close on any transactions -- keelhauling ObamaCare, stopping illegal immigration, cleaning up malicious incompetence at the Veterans’ Administration, prosecuting unrepentant crooks at the IRS, checking Obama’s foreign policy treachery. Since the wave of Tea Party victories in 2010, regular Joes and Janes have not won a single transaction, despite repeated promises by the victors.

And so, Trump Nation wants a transaction president. Period. A splash of charismatic leadership is welcome, but only if charisma advances the transaction. Transformation? All Gibberish.

Thus, closing the borders is neither an ideological conviction about sovereignty, nor a socioeconomic thesis about multiculturalism, downward assimilation, and displacement of opportunity vs economic growth. Closing the borders is a simple pragmatic transaction to deny threats to livelihood, way of life, and personal safety.

Trump Nation wants things to work without being set upon by a mindless, incompetent bureaucracy that steals more out of our paychecks, never delivering results. Government criminals never face prosecution, instead receive lavish bonuses. Trump Nation wants deals that work for them, not deals that require them to pay for someone else’s socially engineered lifestyle, nor pay for rewarding corruption, condescension, and callousness.

Trump Nation is tired of failed transactions leaving only humiliation, disrespect, hardship, and despair. Trump Nation wants a transaction president.

Donald Trump knows transactions. Donald Trump advertises that he’s not only a high stakes negotiator. Trump will save the nation in the grandest transaction yet.

It is that simple.

Just like Trump Airlines.

Recall Trump’s promises in 1988 -- a lot more than a simple transaction in keeping the aging Eastern Airlines shuttle fleet flying.  Trump promised luxury, convenience, style, personal touches, affinity to grandeur, and profitability.

Except for convenience, Trump delivered nothing else for which customers were willing to pay. The Trump Shuttle was a flaming financial wreck. Customers had already defected to upstart Pan Am. In desperation Trump trashed his rival, claiming Pam Am execs were losers, and Pan Am was unsafe. (Sound familiar?)

Soon enough, Donald Trump’s transaction to transform the airline business was a bust. His most important transaction was confounding third party creditors in bailing out his personal guarantees.

Donald Trump’s prefabricated brand is of the quintessential transactional leader. He’s a master, even negotiating brilliant escape hatches when he fails.

Trump Airlines, perhaps Trump’s boldest venture far removed from his core expertise, still displayed Trump’s leitmotif --engineering a brash makeover for an overvalued transaction to get into the airline game, unable to command the nuts-and-bolts knowhow needed to gain market share and stop bleeding margins, thus in desperation finally piloting a perilous landing, coaxed to the ground by Citibank controllers leaving the third party creditors, and employees, to find the exit row chutes, fending for themselves.

Yet Trump Nation’s version of Hope and Change is that Donald Trump will be their transaction savior. Of course, until the transaction no longer works for him, or a smarter broker/dealer sits across the table.

Trump Nation loyalists have an unflinching belief that Donald Trump’s transactions will work for them too. Will they be rewarded for their fidelity?

Will the Trump Shuttle fly again? Well, as Mark Twain quipped in Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar: Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.”

“I’ll build the wall and Mexico is going to pay for it”.  If Donald Trump can deliver on that absurdity, then he can also honor a faded boarding pass for the Trump Shuttle from New York to DC.