I believe the first rule of campaign messaging is that a candidate's greatest strength is the greatest weakness.
It means that if what is attractive about a candidate is his youth and energy (new and improved!) then his vulnerability is the lack of experience, the opposite side of the same coin. Trump's strength is the constant media coverage. His weakness is the media covers him in a way that justifies constant coverage. So the media is shaping Trump's story in the way that suits them, not Trump.
The Boca Raton rally that I saw live, then the Utah rally that I watched in its totality on YouTube, showed Trump well within the new message of Trump as law and order candidate, with his good all-American freedom of speech loving rally-goers being disrupted by paid political ruffians sent by Hillary's campaign. (He had been accusing Sanders, but has switched to Hillary, which of course she denies adamantly.)
This works perfectly for Trump. Media attention because of the protests means free media, plus Trump positions himself as freedom-loving patriots vs. freedom-hating ruffians sent by opponents who create chaos. Good versus evil. Order versus chaos. Nice.
Key is Trump staying on message, and not looking like the provocateur, which means that his campaign staff and his rally-goers need to validate the message. And if they screw up and, for example, sucker-punch a guy on camera or punch a reporter then Trump needs immediately to disavow them and assert that his team uses the police to secure safety and order not home-made rough justice.
 |
Fox News choice of photos |
The belligerent-Trump narrative promoted by the anti-Trump press, now including Fox, links Trump belligerence to protesters to his attacks on Megyn Kelly. As you see from the photo to the right Fox can choose a photo of Trump to make their point, a photo even less flattering of the one they show of Hillary. The Trump depicted by Fox is designed to look scary. Live by Fox; die by Fox.
But it is not Trump's nature to disavow controversy. Trump doubles down. He asserts that he and his kind of people don't get pushed around, that they are right, and justified. Besides, Trump is not fully on-board with disavowing rough do-it-yourself violence because part of Trump's "brand" is that he wins through strength and belligerence and he does not go running to mommy--or to international rule-makers like the UN or NAFTA or the Geneva Convention. Weaklings and talkers (i.e. Hillary and Obama) look to the the rules; Trump negotiates out of strength.
Trump's brand has an internal contradiction. He wants to project lawless strength but also project law and order.
The protests inside and outside his venues expose the dilemma. Trump generated violence at his rallies Trump asserts the strength he will employ against Mexico, who will pay for the wall; China and Japan who will have trade deals re-negotiated, American corporations who will be bullied into repatriating factories, undocumented immigrants who will be deported immediately, etc.
The alternative narrative was law-and-order Trump who could control the violence. A video of very mild touching is all over the internet. The headlines suggest it was a major assault and battery. It is very unclear from the video whether it was his campaign manager or a Trump campaign security person who pulled at the protester, but either way Trump's fingerprints are on it. In the video of the black man hitting and kicking a protester it shows a Trump rally-goer but not a campaign official, and the hitter was black not white, so it puts some distance between Trump and the source of the violence. But still the aura of Trump-inspired violence hovers overhead, especially since the headlines say "Trump!"
Trump's brand has an internal contradiction. He wants to project lawless strength but also project law and order.The protests inside and outside his venues expose the dilemma. Trump generated violence at his rallies Trump asserts the strength he will employ against Mexico, who will pay for the wall; China and Japan who will have trade deals re-negotiated, American corporations who will be bullied into repatriating factories, undocumented immigrants who will be deported immediately, etc.
The alternative narrative was law-and-order Trump who could control the violence. A video of very mild touching is all over the internet. The headlines suggest it was a major assault and battery. It is very unclear from the video whether it was his campaign manager or a Trump campaign security person who pulled at the protester, but either way Trump's fingerprints are on it. In the video of the black man hitting and kicking a protester it shows a Trump rally-goer but not a campaign official, and the hitter was black not white, so it puts some distance between Trump and the source of the violence. But still the aura of Trump-inspired violence hovers overhead, especially since the headlines say "Trump!"
 |
| CNN shows empty Trump podium rather than Sanders speech |
The media much prefers the un-alloyed strong-Trump, and he may be stuck with that narrative because that is the implications of the headlines if not of the actual event. And that narrative will make him vulnerable to the brown-shirt, bull in a china shop meme which Trump had been steering away from, but that his enemies and friends in the press pull him back into.
2 comments:
Good insights. I wonder if Trump is actually so cunning in orchestrating or managing these perceptions; or is it just a consequence of his style combined with pent-up discontent of his followers and the sensationalistic bias of corporate media?
Thanks for your thoughts. I don't actually think it is "management" or forethought in the sense that a novice chess player attempts to think one or two steps ahead. I think it is deeply informed instinct, like that of a house cat who "knows" thanks to millions of years of DNA that when she see rustling in the grass she crouches, stares, then suddenly pounces to see if it is a mouse. Trump is authentic in being a blustery bully who knows that being unpredictable but relentlessly strong and dominant is a strategy that wins most of the time, for him. And he has learned that being such a person is catnip for the media, which loves a vivid hero/anti-hero. I am binge watching The Sopranos, and Tony is an interesting character. The lead characters in The Americans are interesting. So, too, with Breaking Bad's Walter White. Trump has created a character that works on TV and it is big-shot executive of The Apprentice. It isn't calculated, it is instinct. Trump, the audience, and the media are all working with that reptile brain, doing what seems to work.
Post a Comment