Saturday, December 22, 2018

DONALD TRUMP: AN IDEOLOGICAL-BUBBLE GUY WHO THINKS HE'S A MASS-MARKET GUY


Yesterday, President Trump tweeted this:



It was a follow-up to an earlier attempt to sell the wall:



And there was also this:
... Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen ... speaking before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, responded to a question from Representative Tom Marino by saying, “From Congress I would ask for wall. We need wall.”

... Just last week, DHS was roundly mocked for a press release that used wall in a similar manner. When it was originally published on the department’s website, the release began, “DHS is committed to building wall and building wall quickly.”
It's regularly argued that the president doesn't even bother to do outreach to voters outside the Republican base -- I say that on a regular basis. But here are several attempts to try to persuade non-Republicans that we'd like the wall if we just gave it a chance. Maybe we don't like it because it's called "the wall" rather than just "wall." The policy isn't unpopular -- it's just badly branded!

And that must really upset Trump, because he's the King of Branding. (I don't think he has ever actually called himself that, though I'm sure if you asked, him he'd agree that he absolutely deserves the title.)

Trump's election seems to be what you get when we're all allegedly in separate political bubbles -- but he grew up in a mass-market era, and it seems as if he still believes he can persuade the masses that the wall is a swell idea. It may be that he usually doesn't do outreach to the rest of us because his constant diet of Fox News persuades him that he is reaching out to the masses -- in the America described by Fox, everyone thinks like him, except for a few crazy college professors, Hollywood celebrities, soy boys, and undocumented immigrants (who get to vote, of course, in blue states -- that's why he didn't win the popular vote despite how obviously beloved he is).

Trump has lousy poll numbers, but it's clear that he believes only in the relatively positive polls (nearly all from Rasmussen). He also obviously believes that the segment of America that disapproves of him only does so because "the fake news" has us deceived about his greatness. I'm sure he thinks the mainstream media is in the same business he's been in for years -- bending the truth in order to achieve a winning outcome. He believes that, to the MSM, a win equals the triumph of liberalism and the Democratic Party. He can't let the media outbrand him! He's Donald Trump! So he'll keep trying to sell the wall to us, and he's certain he'll find the magic marketing bullet that will make us want to buy it.

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