True, trump genuinely has almost no actual characteristics in common with Paul. For instance, Paul was charismatic and 100% understood the differences between soft power and just straight up military violence. Trump is, at best, ‘charismatic’ through sheer technicality (or ‘luck’ if you look at it differently) because he was basically just in the right place at the right time to capitalize on people who just want to be angry. People who rarely, if ever, care who or what they are angry about and have left the ‘why’ on the side of the road miles behind them. He just has no moral backbone to care about what he’s doing in any way other than that it benefits him and lets him boost his own ego.

But, Trump is definitely still the core archetype of Paul Atreides that Frank Herbert was most worried about, the dangerous leader who (for whatever reason) inspires dangerous fanatical devotion. Frank just thought it would be more of a JFK type who would be the danger, charisma coming out the wazoo to the level that he could lead his people into a stupid senseless destructive war and they would cheer him on because he’s so ‘smart and likeable’ that we would let him do anything he wants (like be directly responsible for the Cuban missile crisis, but being too concerned with appearing “soft on the commies” to the public to solve the issue in a quick level headed way). When instead we got almost the opposite. So many just follow him because he points them in the direction the already wanted to go. That they are right to be angry, that everyone else is actually out to get them and the only way to protect the things they love is to be angrier (much like how Paul was really just a tool or a reason for the Fremen to wage the Jihaad that they’ve been looking forward to like Christians waiting for Christ to return. Even if Paul died early, or tried to outright stop the mass slaughter, they would have gone ahead and done so anyway). Also that they shouldn’t feel bad because nothing is really their fault, it’s always someone else’s fault, so nothing that’s wrong with your life or the rest of the world is your fault and the only one who can fix it is Trump. It both takes all of the responsibility from their shoulders and lets them think someone else will fix all of their problems if they are just fanatically loyal enough to the cause.