Warning to Progressives: Trump is winning the message war.

The Message:

Donald Trump is Shaking Things Up and America Won't take Any Crap.

Note that Trump is smiling

Oh.   One more small thing: He is driving liberals crazy.

Warning to my liberal progressive friends:  He is being accused of being a bull in a china shop.  He is OK with that.

Let me explain, but first a note to readers:   

The author of this blog is not a supporter of Donald Trump. I am trying to observe and describe his messaging and what is working and not working for him and for Democrats who oppose him.  When the blog observes that Trump is succeeding at something and that Democrats are failing it is not an expression of delight.  Some readers misunderstand that.  This blog is an attempt to instruct myself and others about how the new media and political environment works.  I support the ACLU and have donated to them for years, but I have no illusion that they are "popular" when they support the rights of minorities.   They are unpopular.  The ACLU would not be necessary if the rights were supported by popular majorities.  

The public, both left and right, wanted hope and change.

The vote for insurgent anti-establishment candidates Bernie Sanders plus anti-establishment Republicans (Trump-Cruz-Carson) demonstrated there is a significant majority of American voters who want to shake things up.   They wanted it so strongly they ignored Trump's multiple flaws to get it.   Hillary Democrats and Bush-Kasich-Romney-McCain Republicans need to recognize that the established political order lost, and the rejection of them was bipartisan.   Trump represents that change.

The big thing happening these past two week was communication of shaking things up, immediately and decisively.  All the rest was just noise and distraction.

The chaos at the airport is not a bug.  It is a feature. Progressives think that the airport and street demonstrations show support and that it is a win.  See how unpopular he is!   They misunderstand the real message.   They are visual proof that the temporary Muslim ban from seven countries was a big deal, not just a little tinkering around the edges.   The message most of the country is feeling is: "It looks like Trump is doing something to make us safer and he is willing to be criticized by demonstrators and professors and the ACLU.  Good for him."

The leaked story of Trump hanging up on the Australian Prime Minister was not a bug.  It was a feature.  Progressives think it confirms the narrative that Trump is impetuous and a bull in the foreign policy china shop.  Again, they misunderstand the real message.   The leaked story showed that Trump won't take crap from foreigners.  He re-established the international pecking order.  America is number one, Australia is a satellite.   We can do what we want.  We are America.

RT (Russia Today) shows stern Trump

Backing out of the TPP and repealing Obamacare.  Trump said TPP was a bad deal and so did Sanders and Hillary.  A few eggheads are saying it actually helps China and hurts the USA but their talk is confusing and Trump's is clear and firm: it is a bad deal.  Obamacare was a disaster, he said, and he will fix it, just watch.  He took office and wrote executive orders immediately.  Fast and no nonsense and Democrats are angry so this must be real change.

Trump has multiple big visual statements of change:  video of meetings with industrial union bosses;  video of signings of executive orders; video of the Supreme Court nominee with staged drama over which bachelorette got the rose; video and tweets describing Democrats as clamoring and Chuck Schumer as teared-up; video of a phone call to Berkeley threatening to withhold federal grants after protests; video of Trump going to meet the casket of a Navy seal.   The news is full of all the changes of the first two weeks and all the upset it is causing Democrats and civil liberties supporters.

Angering liberals is good politics for Trump

The people demonstrating for Muslims at airports help Trump. 

They prove to people who aren't Muslim and who are suspicious of Muslims that they need a tough guy like Trump to make sure that the crazy Muslim-supporting liberals don't fill America up with terrorists.

Trump is shaking things up.   They can ignore his exaggerations and lies, because doing what he said he would do is what defines an "honest politician."   Trump is not saying he opposes civil rights for Muslims or about people needing health care.   He does not disagree; he changes the subject.  He presents another value, saying he cares first about keeping America safe.  He doesn't oppose health access, he says he will offer "something terrific."   

Liberal website fundraising ad

Progressives think that their complaints about civil liberties for Muslims are righteous and popular.  They are mistaken.  They are righteous but unpopular.  

Few people actually believe and act on the idea that "I disagree with what you say but I will fight to the death your right to say it."   

Look at the evidence of the politics of the First and Second Amendment.   Urban liberals do not give money to the ACLU so they can vigorously defend the right of white men to carry guns.  NRA supporters do not fight to support the civil liberties of Muslims to be free of religious discrimination.  Most people support their favored policies, not the civil rights of their opponents.  

Liberals are fundraising off the notion of stopping Trump and money is pouring in.  "Stop Trump" is good politics within the minority of urban professional multicultural diversity-loving sophisticate who are most dismayed by Trump's election   What those people need to understand and internalize is that the public rejected them, and that includes a great many voters on the left, people who were sympathetic to the notion of shaking up the bipartisan
establishment to its core.  Trump is helped by the criticism of McCain and Graham.   It documents that he is bipartisan.

Trump is winning the message war.  Progressives may think they have him tagged as that disruptive bull in the china shop and that people object to that bull.  Some do, but a great many people on both the left and right were just fine with that notion of a change agent.  Trump is actively showing Americans that he is doing exactly what he said he would do:  shake things up, quickly and decisively and in the face of objectors who want to hang onto the carnage of the past.