We all need to remember this guy used to be a star in a Reality TV Show
I'm afraid that this is actually the most important factor in Trump's apparent success. He may call himself a business mogul, but what he is, and much more successfully, is a professional celebrity.
While he might give the impression that he's just making it all up as he goes along, and spouting whatever pops into his head, I'm certain that every single thing he's said or done in this campaign has been very carefully calculated.
In the first place, the man knows how to work the media. He knows how to make sure that he's always the top story. He also knows that the Republican base are, by now, so twisted and distrustful of all mainstream establishment figures (journalists, politicians, experts of any sort) that any negative publicity only increases their support for him.
Trump knows that a significant segment of the American public literally does not care whether a word he's said is true, so long as it confirms their biases, and they will turn against anyone who attempts to provide facts to the contrary. If he claimed tomorrow that sky is green, and it's because we aren't burning enough fossil fuels to keep it blue, his supporters would be outside 5 minutes later, running every piece of garden equipment they owned, while letting their vehicles idle in the driveway. (Or, you know, in the closed garage, because no safety warning's going to force them to risk letting Mexican terrorists into their garage.)
And every single cable news segment, newspaper column, blog, tweet and Facebook meme that resulted-- whether from his supporters, or from sane people-- would only help his
ratings polling numbers.
That, in itself, is absolutely tragic, and it's the somewhat inevitable result of what the GOP and right-wing media have been doing for the last 40 years. It's just worked so well that even
they can't control it anymore. Be careful what you wish for, eh?
But the other factor at play is that Trump is, or at least
was, actually a businessman. He wrote a book called 'The Art of the Deal,' outlining how to get everything you want by being absolutely brazen and uncompromising, and he seems to be following it to the letter. Start out by proposing something extreme-- far beyond what you actually want? Check. Put your opponent on the back foot, and make them respond to your extreme demands? Check. Any easing off from that initial, extreme position then
looks like you're trying to compromise, and be reasonable. The end result is that you either get
at least what you actually wanted in the first place, and/or you make the other party look like they're the one being unreasonable and refusing to work with you.
Again, it's basically what the GOP have been doing since at least the Clinton era, but now Trump's doing it to them. And he's better at it, because he knows how to work the spin to his advantage, and because genuinely has nothing to lose.
So I honestly don't know what will happen. He might actually get the nomination, if only because the Republican leadership will be absolutely terrified of him running as an Independent, and splitting the vote.
If he does get the nomination, I can't bring myself to believe he would win the final election. The Republican base is shrinking as it is, and just because somebody's wildly 'Liking' him on social media, doesn't mean they'll actually bother to vote, let alone for him. (That's the down-side to celebrity; you may have millions of Twitter followers, but that doesn't mean any of them would bother to put down their phones long enough to spit on you if you caught fire.)
But I honestly don't know anymore. Like I said, Trump's campaign is the culmination of 40 years of right-wing plotting. And doesn't the monster always turn on its creator in the end?
