A changed world helped Trump win: Campbell

dubai—The flow of information and quick-paced world might be bad for our culture, but perfect for the crisis management of any country, said a former UK official.

Alastair Campbell, former Downing Street press secretary and director of communications and strategy for former UK PM Tony Blair, attributed US President Donald Trump’s victory to the way the world has changed.

“Trump has survived a number of storms in his campaign that frankly might have destroyed other candidates in other eras. Yes, it is about his style and his ability to say black is white and have his supporters believe him, but also the way the world has changed,” said Campbell.

The 24/news and non-stop flow of information on social media has shortened people’s attention span. “We absorb much more but we absorb less profoundly. We normalize things that are abnormal. It isn’t good for policy formation or decisionmaking, but it is an advantage in crisis management,” noted Campbell.

He added that Trump is going by the same strategy as Russia’s President Vladimir Putin: that nothing is true, but anything is possible. “Fake news and posttruth and how they have become the most fundamental to the most powerful democracy in the world. I think we should be worried about this,” he told a crowd of delegates and attendees.

He also referred to the Malaysian Airlines plane, flight MH370, that went missing in 2014 as huge news and social media posts followed. However, news went quiet as search for it was called of earlier in March.

Speaking during the UAE’s Public Diplomacy and Government Communication Forum, he shared 15 rules of crisis management, giving examples of his former position in Tony Blair’s government.

He noted, “A few months ago, you would’ve imagined the word Brexit as a rather tasteless breakfast cereal, if you were a comedian and you wanted to raise a laugh, you’d put the word Donald Trump in the same sentence as the word president. The Brexit is happening, Trump is president, and the Oxford English Dictionary has decided the word of the year is post-truth.”

And while today’s era has many “unthinkable crises” such as refugee crisis, climate change and terrorism, there are things to be optimistic about, he noted.