# Why Is/Was Trump So Popular **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 8, 2021, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-was-trump-so-popular/929987 "2021-01-08T01:36:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 30
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2021, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-was-trump-so-popular/929987/30 "2021-01-08T17:14:36Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > let’s just fast-forward to yesterday, when he made that phony hypocritical speech where he clearly didn’t believe a single word he was saying but was told by sane people that it was politically necessary. He’s done comparable things on rare occasions when the heat gets too high. Usually he goes on to immediately undercut himself by letting his true feelings out shortly afterwards. In any event, compared to most politicians he’s a lot more authentic. > [@Velocity](#): > > I recently read an article - might have been in the _Atlantic_ - that observed that almost every single candidate who loses a presidential election (the Dukakis, Gore, Kerry, Romney, Hillary types) expresses regret afterwards that they had not been more “authentic” during their campaign and that they strongly believed they would have won, or at least performed much better, had they expressed their true, blunt, unfiltered views and personality to voters. > > Trump winning in 2016, and hanging so tough in 2020, may be proof of the success of a candidate who **doesn’t** have a brain-to-mouth filter. Right. Suppose a politician was as unfiltered as Trump but wasn’t also a corrupt and amoral idiot with serious mental issues, they might do even better than Trump. OTOH, it’s possible that the only reason Trump was/is as unfiltered as he is is due to his mental issues. Because the weight of virtually unanimous conventional wisdom saying you absolutely can’t do that is very strong. Trump is in his own mind the smartest man in the world and biggest expert on every conceivable issue, so he’s confident enough to think that all political experts are wrong and only he himself has it right. Normal people can’t do that. As to the issue itself, it’s an example of a point I’ve [previously made here WRT Trump and his appeal](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trumps-bad-boy-appeal/779927/23), which is that sometimes the total is very different than the sum of the parts. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-was-trump-so-popular/929987)._