Has yet to be shown, obviously. However I’d recommend those who make the quick segue, from ‘sure we were wrong thinking Trump would crash and burn as candidate’ to ‘but we know he’ll be ineffective as president’ think twice about it at least. The same biases and bubble-dwelling might influence both predictions.
And while governing isn’t the same as campaigning but it’s not totally different and unrelated. Making your policy changes last is also about getting enough voters to agree, to re-elect you and then a like minded successor or as in Reagan’s case for example, shift the political ground far enough that the next opposing party president (Bill Clinton) accepts much of your agenda as fait accomplit. Obama did the first, but failed at the second and is being succeeded by somebody dedicated to undoing his agenda (though again we don’t know how that will actually pan out, what parts are really un-doable). Maybe Trump will fail to even be re-elected, but the point is that effectiveness as leader is to a large degree decided by subsequent decisions of the voters in subsequent campaigns, so being able to convince voters is relevant to both campaigning and governing.
look back through recent history at who wins presidencies. It’s usually the inspiring orator with a concise set of things he/she will do.
JFK, oft quoted to this day, beat Nixon who came off as a wooden plank.
Reagan, who was called the “Great Communicator,” defeated wooden planks Carter and Mondale.
Bill Clinton, who’s charisma and oratory skills made H-Dub look like a wooden plank in comparison.
Dubya, who wasn’t so much charismatic as he was seen as “folksy” and “approachable” defeated Gore and Kerry, both wooden planks in comparison.
Obama, probably at least Reagan’s equal as a communicator, handed McCain and Romney their asses on wooden planks.
And this time around, Trump won based on getting people’s attention and telling them about his plan (details coming “real soon now.”). Meanwhile Hillary Clinton stiffened into a wooden plank and retreated into campaigning on little more than “Who on earth would vote for him?”
As it turns out, the answer to that question is “the number of people who vote ® every time.” the Democratic Party failed to understand that.
I’m just gonna jump in here with my 2nd post, since I did not find an introduction section. Nice to meet everyone, btw.
I underestimated the stupidity in this country. I did not think they would elect a racist, misogynist, TV reality host. All I’ve seen from Donald Trump is that he knows how to use the media to his advantage and fire up his base. He’s entertaining, while Hillary is boring.
I guess the Democrats will need to find a dancing bear to compete.
Until this election, I had no idea American’s were so angry. I guess I would have known, had I listened to right wing media on occasion. (that’s on my To-Do list)
Obviously, Donald does not know more than the generals, like he says he does. There’s going to be no wall. The jobs he has promised to get back, are not coming back. I’d like to see him try to kick 20 million people off of health care. The only thing it appears that he’s good at is flapping his jaws.
He managed to convince his base that the election was rigged after Russia hacked for him, the FBI director shilled for him, & Wikileaks leaked for him. --John Fugelsang
Since Donald originally wanted John Kasich to be in charge of all domestic and foreign policy, I predict he’s going to be our next President, (Mike Pence) while Donald is a cheerleader for himself.
50% of them are below the median. The problem is misestimating where the median is in terms of insecurity and fear, and how many of any political bent are willing to throw away evidence and good sense to vote for vapidly unsupported accusations and insincere bombast.
He reminds me of some executive-types who have an excellent knack for saying whatever will endear themselves to whoever is in the room, then doing the exact opposite, then selling the idea that it was the right thing to do.
He’s good at reading and manipulating an audience. That’s a good skill for winning an election. It might be helpful in governing and building coalitions. It won’t help at all in making good policy decisions.
It’s a mistake to underestimate him, but let’s not overestimate him either.
I’m confident that what really happened, and the only reason why Trump is now president, is similar to what Eddie Murphy described in this routine from Delirious (description below): [in which Jesse Jackson gets elected only because a bunch of white people got drunk and voted for him as a joke.]
The OP may be done underestimating Trump, but I’m done overestimating the American people. That’s where the responsibility lies; he just did what we let him do.
Excellent post and well stated. I agree completely.
He has conned the Trump supporters. He won’t be able to carry out his hateful proposals We always knew that, but his supporters wanted to believe his lies. The only underestimating of him is what a quintessential conman he is. At t his point, he is unlikely to go on conning America and the world and will fail miserably.
You know, until I read this thread I was convinced that Trump would never be able to build his wall-and that he knew that and always carefully put in an out for himself.
After extended negotiations with Mexico, to put the excitement of the wall well behind him, Trump will mention that he can’t build the wall after all because Mexico won’t pay for it. Oh well, lets move on.
But reading this thread where everyone is done underestimating Trump and yet continues to underestimate him (including me-I still underestimate him), we are convinced he will never build the wall. Given our track record, the wall is looking pretty likely…
That type of logic is great for late night comedians, but has no place in rational discussion. The fact that something was not predicted in the past does not mean that something else will not be predicted either.
The wall just can’t be built. It was never feasible. Mexico won’t pay for it. The economy of the U.S. could not handle it. And even Trump himself tried to back off it until he read the crowd and realized they wouldn’t let him. When Trump realizes something is not feasible, it’s pretty easy.
Trump can’t change the laws of economics. At most, there might be some ceremonial wall built. But the wall he described cannot be built. Even if Trump were dumb enough to think it could be, Congress would not be.
People take Trump too literally. The bombastic blowhard isn’t the guy that built Trump Enterprises.
He’s much shrewder than that. His win wasn’t entirely luck. He had a strategy that paid off. I’m very impressed with how little he spent compared to Clinton. He ran a very lean campaign with half the staffing and organization and it worked. Dumb luck? I don’t think so. He knew what he was doing.
He’s shifting towards the middle now. Talking sensibly and I’m more optimistic about the next 4 years.
The angry, loudmouth Donald will still appear once in awhile. But I’m hoping we’ll see the rational version most of the time. I think he understands how important it is to respect the Presidency.
Something I have heard a couple of times in the last week or so is that Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally, and non-supporters take him literally but not seriously. Perhaps now that he is going to be President, the second part will change.
Or perhaps not. I suspect there is a contingent of Dems who will greet everything Trump does for the next four years with the same "RACISTSEXISTHOMOPHOBEEVIL!!!’ that they used during the campaign. And we know how that worked out. Is there reason to think it will work better now?
Exactly. The stupidity of Americans voting for Trump, of electing him, is nearly unbelievable. colossal. I am amazed at and ashamed of America for this event. Absolutely horrendous.
It is not difficult to assess how stupid Trump supporters have been. They have, literally, voted for a conman. That’s obvious to anyone who is not blindingly backing him. And it is the position of the vast majority of the educated, intelligent, broad minded thinkers across the world.
Your little saying is stupid too, BTW. It is not ‘the dumbest person in the room … who thinks he/she is smarter than everyone else.’ That person is most likely the smartest in the room. I am not saying I am: I am saying that people around the world, intelligent, democratic world leaders, our allies in fact, think the same. When Clinton said Trump supporters were deplorable, it may not have been the diplomatic thing to say, but it was the true thing to say.
So you can echo stupid little sayings like ‘the dumbest person in the room is the one who thinks he/she is smarter than everyone else.’ You can echo such nonsense until you are blue in the face. It doesn’t make it true. Not at all. That’s the problem, or one of them, with Trump supporters: they like to think if something is said often enough, that makes it true. They like to say that empty, unproven sayings are true simply because it is what they want to believe. They are against education, intelligence and wisdom. Unless at some point it supports what they want to believe. Otherwise, not.
Perhaps is appears nearly unbelievable to you because it’s entirely unbelievable in fact. You already know that Trump drew a large percentage of votes among college-educated men and women and among lesser educated men and women as well. He also did better among blacks and Hispanics than have previous Republican candidates. So his appeal was broad-based and crossed many lines in terms of education and lifestyle.
You really need to get over yourself. The people who voted for Trump (I’m not one, btw) understand him at a level you don’t even know exists.
Trump did not crush Clinton, but lost the popular vote to her by more than a million. The only reason Donald Trump is now the president elect is through a miscarriage of the Electoral College. That is to say the EC apparently worked as it’s supposed to, but the candidate with fewer votes was awarded the prize. To me that sounds like a miscarriage.