Politics is show business.

Voters think they analyze candidates and make a decision.  They don't.  They vote their gut.

Politics is show business.  Trump was slapstick but interesting slapstick.

Ginger: hot

Mary Ann: kind

This blog has an underlying theory.  People vote their guts.  Candidates are profiled by voters and fit into mental categories, and those categories are archetypes: stock characters.   We understand stock characters: the fearless sheriff, the drunken abusive husband, the nagging wife, the submissive wife, the mean boss.    Older readers will remember the opening credits of Gilligan's Island, in which the stock characters were introduced by their cliche:  The Captain; the Professor; The Millionaire and his Wife; Ginger, the Glamorous Actress; Mary Ann,the Girl Next Door; and Gilligan the Lovable Foolish Puppy-Man.

Everything Trump did was consistent with the role he adopted: the big shot, alpha-male, sexually aggressive, dominating, what's in it for me, bully.   The bankruptcies, the paying no taxes, his marriages and the pussy-grab tape weren't destructive to him because they fit.  His genius was to sell the idea that someone like him was just what the country needed.

Hillary's image was more complicated, which is a problem in itself, but by election day she was the highly competent and aggressive woman who cut corners to get ahead, and came across as self-interested even as she was fighting for others.   Hillary's speeches listed policy positions.  She wanted to be understood by what she stood for.   Trump's speeches had a different effect because he wanted to be understood by who he was, a fighter for America.

The theory predicts that actual policy positions are unimportant.  Nice theory.  Is there data to back this up?

Malcolm Gladwell, writing in The New Yorker, cited a story of three studies of hiring practices, all using the same data.   Ten candidates for a position were interviewed separately by six different HR professionals.   The candidates presented a resume, then had a one hour interview.   All HR hiring professionals met all ten candidates, and each was asked to rank the ten in order.

There was great similarity in the rankings.  The preliminary conclusion was that there was good sense and predictability in the hiring process.

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Then six different HR people were asked to see a video of the interview portion of the ten candidates--but without access to the resume.   The results surprised the study team: the results were nearly the same, although they had predicted that there would be dispersion in the rankings since the second group lacked access to the most vital part of the hiring process, the resumes that showed education and previous job experience.

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Then a third group of six different HR people were shown simply the first ten seconds of the interview portion of the ten candidates, simply the portion when the candidate entered the room, shook hands, and sat down.  Surprise.  The results were the same.

This suggested an entirely different conclusion: that the resume, the long interview, the whole process was a sham.  In fact people ranked candidates on pure body language: looks, carriage, demeanor, and information gathered in a gut reaction to a first impression.

Meanwhile, other studies suggest the same thing.   Student evaluations of professors made at the beginning of the semester are the same as evaluations made after 16 weeks of multiple exposures.  Here is one from Stanford:   Click Here

There is lots of science on this, particularly surrounding the important business of hiring the right person.

This blog has likened the 2016 presidential race to a bout of professional wrestling in which stock characters play out larger-than-life roles using body language and a few shouted lines.  When the issue positions match the character and role--then the words confirm the character and the politician seems "authentic".  Trump was authentic in being a bad-boy bully.  Hillary was always the "good girl", the star student, the successful attorney, the professional trail blazer, the suffering wife who did her duty.  Life events revealed that image to be inconsistent and complicated.  She gave speeches for money, she got rich, she didn't do her emails right along with other State Department people.   

Trump's slapstick bad-ness was an easier role to play than was Hillary's good-girl goodness.  Voters thought Trump was more honest and trustworthy than Hillary.  Trump said he was a scoundrel and embraced the role. 

Just added 8:00 a.m. Pacific Time,  so it will be visible to people who read this blog by email, an astute comment by Rick Millward, of southern Oregon:

"Another factor concerns the likelihood that people tend to favor those who seem to similar to themselves or have characteristics they would like to have.

As a star of popular culture Trump was in a different category than other politicians, and had the advantage of a projected image, mostly fabricated, as a successful businessman. Success in business is highly regarded in the U.S.; that he is a vulgarian reflects the increasing vulgarity of much of popular culture (which has never been that intellectually elevated). Most successful businessmen in the public eye are more dignified so Trump stands out and appealed to simple minded voters who are made uncomfortable by educated, thoughtful candidates. That he mirrored their prejudices was an added benefit.

Trump's money gave him the freedom to act anti-socially, which pushed him, as a one-celled organism is drawn to the light, towards situations and outcomes that rewarded this behavior. Less well-off rubes, who are forced to act subservient, find this empowering. Trump gives his followers a feeling of power they do not possess by themselves. Coupled with GOP pandering to racist, religious and bigoted minorities to gain power this nurtured a rich petrie dish for the toxic virus now infecting our Republic. "