Yeah, this might be correct. It's possible Trumpism is a natural extension of tea-party-ism.
Especially ironic, given one of the tenets of tea partyism was paying down the national debt.
The national debt is too abstract and wonk-ish to be an actual tenet of a populist movement. I remember people talked about it a lot, but only in trite ways and I really think it was just a fig leaf.
The national debt is concrete, but no president likes having their ability to spend constrained.
It should be handled in the way all >4 year payback US problems are: by empowering a commission to do the neccessary unpopular things and give members longer-than-4-year terms.
I actually believe that the hardline tea partiers did believe this until they actually saw where the money was going. Then, lots of people in the tea party started saying "get the government's hands off my social security" (the irony would be funny if it didn't hurt so much).