You Won’t Read This But…Trump Won Because He Was the Feel-Good Candidate
Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States. And now, just like a passenger surprised by a bout of explosive diarrhea on a cross-country flight, our nation just learned things are about to get a lot shittier before they get better.
Of course, some are wondering how this shitty moment happened. Others are wondering what happens next. But neither those on the left or the right seem to understand how Trump pulled off the biggest upset in American political history. According to Politico, even Clinton’s campaign aides can’t seem to agree how this shit happened.
Let me break it down into simple chapter and verse: Donald Trump is the president because he won the emotional battle–his emotional appeal was far greater than Hillary Clinton’s.
Voters are more emotional than they are rational. You must win that fight. This has been true for every presidential election going back to FDR. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about Obama beating McCain or Romney, Obama won the emotional fight. For more people, it felt good to vote for Obama, and his brand of hope and change.
The same was true for George W Bush in his victories over Gore and Kerry. Despite the Supreme Court battle about dimples and hanging chads, despite Florida being crooked as hell, despite one candidate’s brother being the governor of that state, despite all the other ridiculous recount issues, Al Gore didn’t get a great enough number of Electoral College votes to win. Why? Because enough people, in key states, felt good voting for Bush.
The same could be said for Bill Clinton when he beat George W’s dad and made the elder Bush take that L. But when George HW Bush won in ‘88–when he beat Michael Dukakis–it wasn’t because he was the better candidate. It was purely because he won their emotional fight. Dukakis had laid out a compelling argument to America. He had a sizable lead. Then, late in the game, GHW Bush dropped his infamous racist Willie Horton dog whistle ad. Boom! The election was his to win.
George HW Bush didn’t rely on the power of his personal charm. Not the way Obama, Clinton, or even his son could. Papa Bush used that other powerful emotional appeal: Fear. Which works just as well.
That was Nixon’s trick, too. Nixon was not likable. Not like Reagan was. With Reagan it felt good for Americans to vote for him. It didn’t feel good to vote for Dick Nixon. It just felt safer. (Which kinda feels good.) Nixon was going to keep “the silent Majority” of Americans safe from the hippies, black revolutionaries and race riots; plus he had a secret plan to win the Vietnam War. For more Americans, it felt good to vote for Nixon in ’68 and ’72 than for his opponents. But that was not the case when Nixon ran against the charismatic political machine that was JFK in ’60. That’s when the sweaty-faced politician lost the emotional fight.
You can keep going back. It’s true with Eisenhower. More Americans felt good voting for the general who won World War II. Pattern holds true for Truman. He dropped the bomb. It’s super obvious when you talk about FDR. That dude was charming and made his case every Sunday night in his fireside chats broadcast on the radio.
That same emotional awareness is why Trump won.
It’s also why Hillary Clinton lost.
Hillary could never generate the emotional excitement Obama was able to muster in young Americans. It’s not that Millennials turned on her. She just never turned them on. Emotionally. Not the way Trump did. Or Bernie did.
One reason why voter turnout numbers were down is because Hillary–with her obviously calculating nature–forgot that people don’t make decisions rationally. Voters don’t rely on logic to decide who the better candidate is. If that were true, she’d be the president.
We vote the same way we do everything. We process the world emotionally, first. Then we use our minds to make sense of why we feel the way we do. We rationalize our emotions. We make sense of them. Trump knew that. Trump relied on that. As a salesman, Trump understands people better than a politician. He knows why you buy, emotionally. And America bought him. Well, enough people did. Like GW Bush, that’s all he needed. Now he’s president.
How did Trump win his emotional battle against Hillary? He worked both sides of the emotional spectrum.
Like Reagan, Trump charmed conservatives. With soothing dulcet notes of nostalgia, he conjured false memories of a time when America was great. (Whatever that means.) But also, just like Nixon, Trump scared people. Then he promised to protect them.
Like Bill Clinton, Trump knew how to play it dumb when he needed to, and he knew when to make people feel like he was the smartest man in the room.
Like Obama, for many Americans he was a fun candidate to vote for, it felt like you were changing the world by voting for him.
Like George W Bush, he was the son of privilege but somehow he learned to talk like a man of the people. He defends blue collar workers because he loves America. Or something like that.
But you see how Hillary Clinton did none of those things.
Hillary connected best emotionally as the first woman to be elected president. But she didn’t push that angle hard, not until the end. She seemed afraid to use it early. It seemed like she feared that America might be more sexist than it is racist–a lesson she felt she learned in her ’08 primary loss to Obama.
Just like Gore and Kerry before her, Hillary made her case: she was the more qualified candidate. The better choice to lead our nation. That’s all logical. You have to think about it. But who wants to think that much? I’m being honest. Most people don’t. Not these days. At least not about things we’re not interested in. Save your lockbox, Mr Gore. Don’t tell me about your detailed plan to get us out of Iraq, Senator Kerry. Don’t wow me with your policy wonk enthusiasm, Hillary. That’s all important, but first make us feel good to vote for you. If you can’t do that…you lose. Which all three did.
People love to say that Hillary lost because America is more sexist than it is racist. They point to the fact that Rust Belt voters went for Obama twice and then didn’t vote for Hillary. Obviously, those voters can’t be racist if they voted for Obama. They must be more sexist than racist.
…Um, no. Half my family is white. Many of them voted for Trump. Many of those same people voted for Obama. And many of those same people are racist as hell. I know, they’re my family. Thing is, voting ain’t that simple.
Is America sexist? Hell yes it is.
Is America racist? Hell yes it is.
Is America more sexist than it is racist? I don’t know. You don’t know. It’s both. Why compare?
It’s like when people want to compare the Holocaust to the Atlantic slave trade to the genocide of Native Americans and ask: which was worse? That’s the wrong question to ask. They were all horrific. Some things don’t need to be, and can’t be, properly compared. Rather than ask if Americans are more sexist than we are racist, let’s hold to the fact Americans are both sexist and racist. And at toxic levels.
Did Trump win because America doesn’t care enough about the lives of women, Muslims, Mexicans, blacks, or disabled citizens?
Yes. Sure. You can say that. It’s pretty hard to defend otherwise.
But clearly, the things Trump said about those populations didn’t disqualify him from the presidency. Hell, multiple claims of sexual assault did not disqualify him. Which is a terrible statement about the state of our nation. Trump didn’t win because he doesn’t care about those populations. He won because the voters didn’t care about those populations. His voters’ fears, their privilege, their distance from the effects of racism, prejudice, and sexism, allowed them to minimize the impact of Trump’s countless bigoted statements. But that’s not why they voted for him.
They voted for him because it felt good for them.
The same could be said of Bernie Sanders. It felt good to vote for Bernie. And that wasn’t true for Hillary, not with enough Americans for her to be president.
So, yes it was sexism. And it was racism and bigotry. And it was economic insecurity. It was xenophobia and prejudice against Muslims and Mexicans. But as hard as it may be to understand: for some people, it felt good to vote for Trump for those reasons.
This election wasn’t a popularity contest, at least not the way that analogy suggests. Simply put, Trump won because it felt emotionally better for more people to vote for him than it felt good for people to vote for Hillary.
Until the Democrats figure out that that was the difference between Obama and losers like Kerry, Gore and Hillary Clinton, the party will continue to lose elections that seemed like sure things, even though, clearly, they have the better candidate. Maybe that’s true on paper. But people don’t live on paper. They live in the real world. And in the real world, whoever it feels better to vote for is the one who wins.
Trump knew that. All salesmen know that. Actors also know that. Generals and military men know that. All great politicians know that. Hate him or love him, Nixon was a great politician. Bill Clinton was a great politician. JFK, FDR, and Obama, all great politicians. Reagan was an actor. George W was a salesman. His dad was a military man. Just like Eisenhower was. Those former presidents may not know this themselves. But they know it. They may call it the power of their personality. Or they may think it’s their personal magnetism. Or they may think they knew how to articulate the American Dream. Sure. All true. Whatever. But at the core, their appeal was emotional. America picks whomever it feels better to vote for, for reasons both positive and negative.
Hillary, I wish you knew this. You were the more qualified candidate. Too bad logic comes in second. Just like you did.
