The Riverside Press-Enterprise
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.