On Sunday on Fox Business Donald Trump let Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have it with both barrels. He specifically hit McConnell on the deal on the infrastructure bill.

“There was no way that should have been passed. It should have been 100% for infrastructure. So what’s happening is, we had a thing called the debt ceiling, and he could have used that to win everything, and he chose not to…Mitch McConnell’s a disaster. The Republicans have to get a new leader,” Trump said.

He added that Congress doesn’t require more “Mitch McConnell-type guys” and that voters should elect “tougher people” to represent conservatives in the 2022 midterms.

And what’s where Trump makes his mistake. Intentionally or unintentionally, Trump seems to think he is a conservative. He’s not. He’s a populist. Mitch McConnell is a conservative. Once more, the two philosophies are diametrically opposed. Is there a mutuality of action? Yes, but the motivation comes from different places.

Trump trumpets his belief, sincere or not, that there is some inherent wisdom in the common man. Well, that’s very politically expedient, as normal people and voters love to hear themselves praised. They also love “common sense” simple answers to complex questions. Trump has those answers in great numbers. Sometimes they are quite accurate. Many times they are not.

Populists prefer a sort of mob rule where emotion and blind loyalty rate high. They traffic in easy platitudes punctuated by pieties and cliches. Certainly a majority of the base of the Republican Party of today embraces Trump and these notions. But conservatives are quite different.

American conservatism as written and practiced by John Adams, Calvin Coolidge, Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Bill Buckley, Newt Gingrich, Mitch McConnell, and Ron DeSantis understands that in our form of government the mob does not rule. Elected representatives rule. Thus the frivolous emotions of the electorate are hopefully calmed by the sagacity of the elected officials. Yes, not unalloyed in practice. But better than the mob.

Conservatives also comprehend the balance of power between the branches of government, which should ensure no demagogue can go long without opposition. Populists would sweep all that away to indulge in the frisson of the moment. Not exactly what the Founders intended.

Populists, very much like the Left, want instant fixes to long term problems. Conservatives understand that the world can be made better by long toil, compromise, and gradual advancement. However, it can be made much worse with the stroke of a pen on a single afternoon.

That’s why populists like Trump despise conservatives like McConnell. McConnell takes a strategic view, hence his win Sunday on the Biden BBB budget (Manchin has killed it with McConnell aid) and his 2016 win on Merrick Garland that set up the conservative Supreme Court majority of today. Populists only look to the present, so their rampant emotions can be immediately slaked. That’s no way to run a party or a government. McConnell knows that and acts accordingly. Trump, if he ever did, certainly doesn’t publicly practice it now. Point, set, game: McConnell.