Why Trump will win again
In order to appreciate the unhinged reaction in various quarters to former president Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucuses, it helps to remember how he won in 2016.
Back when Trump entered the presidential race as a mere billionaire New York real estate developer and star of a longrunning and top-rated reality TV show, he was booked all the time on cable news shows, had a huge following on Twitter and was even invited to host NBC’S “Saturday Night Live.”
Then he won, ending the political career of the woman who had reserved a barge for a fireworks show to celebrate becoming the first female president of the United States.
She had to cancel it and write a book titled, “What Happened.”
What happened is that many people who heard Donald Trump found him entertaining, and then they found that they agreed with him.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump was able to use his considerable skills in marketing, branding and promotion to manipulate the people who make decisions about news coverage. Day after day, he would say something on Twitter that was just outrageous enough to blow up the rundown on the morning shows, the Sunday shows and the prime time cable lineup. Whatever they had planned to talk about, they were talking about Trump instead.
Then there were the debates, with unprecedented, sky-high TV ratings. Maybe people tuned in at first because Trump was a celebrity. But after every debate he moved up in the polls, a standing that was visible as Trump migrated from the outer podiums with the longshots to the center of the stage as the frontrunner.
Tens of millions of Americans liked what they heard, which was absolutely horrifying to Hillary Clinton’s rockribbed supporters in newsrooms, on tech company campuses and inside think tanks where out-of-work cabinet secretary types of both parties waited in sulky exile for their next appointment.
A week ago, Iowa Republicans came out in sub-zero temperatures to give Trump a 30-point victory and crush the remaining candidates.
The GOP nomination fight ended in a first-round knockout.
As the general election campaign began, CNN cut away from Trump’s Iowa victory speech and MSNBC refused to carry it at all.
”At this point in the evening, the projected winner of the Iowa caucuses has just started giving his victory speech,” said MSNBC host Rachel Maddow. “We will keep an eye on that as it happens. We will let you know if there is any news made in that speech, if there is anything noteworthy, something substantive and important.”
She told viewers the network’s reputation would be hurt by “knowingly broadcasting untrue things.” Write your own punch line to that set-up.
It is much more likely that MSNBC and CNN were simply unwilling to let their viewers hear Trump for themselves, because they have invested a lot of time and energy into convincing their audiences that the former president is Hitler. It’s as if they want a mulligan for 2016, and they’re never going to give him a platform again.
Trump’s victory speech in Iowa was calm and conciliatory, full of praise for his GOP opponents. He also spoke about securing the border. “We have an invasion of millions and millions of people that are coming into our country. I can’t imagine why they think that’s a good thing,” he said.
CNN and MSNBC did not want anybody to hear that.
NBC News has really gone off the deep end in its effort to make the former president into the scariest thing since the last movie that had “chainsaw” in its title. A story posted online the day before the Iowa caucuses was headlined, “Fears grow that Trump will use the military in ‘dictatorial ways’ if he returns to the White House.”
Actually, if you read the story, fears are growing that Trump is going to win in November. “We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said the executive director of one or another of the Institutes for the Protection of Big Titles and Salaries.
Others may be rehearsing their “Please forgive me and take me back” speeches. The co-founder of Home Depot, 88-yearold Ken Langone, has been generously backing Nikki Haley for president. After Iowa, he told the Financial Times that she wouldn’t see any more money from him if she doesn’t “get traction in New Hampshire” because “you don’t throw money down a rat hole.” Langone said he’d probably vote for Donald Trump in a general election even though he didn’t like all the postelection drama in 2020 because Trump “did some pretty good things.”
On Wednesday, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon gave an interview to CNBC and stunned their anchors into silence by praising Trump’s policies. “He was kind of right about NATO, he was kind of right about immigration. He grew the economy quite well. Tax reform worked, he was right about some of China. I don’t like how he said things about Mexico. But he wasn’t wrong about these critical issues,” Dimon said.
Clearly Dimon missed an episode of NPR’S daily show, “Wait, Wait, He’s Hitler.”
Longtime political pollster and consultant Frank Luntz expressed incredulity at Trump’s strong performance. “I thought he was done,” Luntz said. “You don’t come back from an impeachment, you don’t come back from Jan. 6, you don’t come back from any of this, but he’s come back.”
They can’t bear to watch. There go the last five viewers of CNN and MSNBC.
Write Susan@ Susanshelley.com or follow her on Twitter @ Susan_shelley