There is a whole Trump world out there. It is big and important. The fact that it might have been invisible to you makes it even more important.
My political tourism brought me close up to multiple Republican candidates for president: Trump, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio, all of them. When a person attends a political event one signs in with name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. A key purpose of in-person rallies is to collect contact information.
Curiously enough, those names apparently did not get transferred over to the Republican Party. The names are collected by the candidates themselves, and saved for themselves. I get almost no mail from the RNC. I got lots of email from the various individual defeated candidates and I still get email approximately weekly from Ted Cruz.
Of course, Trump is visible in the public way: news conferences, rallies, presidential briefings, tweets. But there is also a private channel: from Trump to his e-mail contacts.
I get daily emails from Donald Trump. It is a world that might well be invisible to non-Trump readers, similarly to the way that Fox News might be near invisible to a person who does not watch television or who lacks access to cable news.
The e-mail outreach from Trump consists of at least three dimensions. One is Trump being "presidential". It is a daily message from President Trump. It is written as a friendly but somewhat formal daily report. An example is below. Note the White House style letterhead. It is "official business" not "campaign business." Here are two examples from this week:
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| Formal and Presidential |
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| Another example |
A second channel is the Trump Pence campaign, a campaign that did not end with the election. This effort is a daily reminder that Trump is the embattled soldier fighting for the American people against the forces of Democrats, DC corruption, the fake-news media, Muslims, illegal immigrants, liberals, foreigners, and people who hate America.
Here are two recent examples, one on "Fake News" and the other a more generic campaign appeal. Each daily email has two or three buttons which bring one directly to a donation site.
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| Fake News Themed |
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| General Campaign appeal for money |
There is a third channel of Donald Trump campaign messaging: his store. Several times a week I receive appeals directing me to the Donald Trump campaign store. Below is a typical ad, and then a screen shot of the opening page of the Trump campaign store where the ads link you.
Note that there are multiple Donald Trump official stores. One is a joint partnership with Spaulding: trumpstore2016.com. Another is a joint store done cooperatively between Trump-Pence and the RNC: shop.donaldjtrump.com
Note that there are multiple Donald Trump official stores. One is a joint partnership with Spaulding: trumpstore2016.com. Another is a joint store done cooperatively between Trump-Pence and the RNC: shop.donaldjtrump.com
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| The Ad for the Store |
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| An official Trump campaign store |
Meanwhile, there are other stores selling Trump gear that are not affiliated in any way.
An example is an online store "The Art of Trump". It uses a logo that closely mirrors the Trump-Pense design.
There are tiny explanatory disclaimers explaining they are not affiliated. These are entrepreneurs and their gear are sometimes aggressively transgressive or funny, making an appeal to base Trump attitudes. The tone of the ad copy is Trump-style in your face populism.
This mirrors what I observed at Trump rallies in New Hampshire and Florida, an active environment of Trump camp followers, pure entrepreneurs selling tee shirts and buttons with home-made Trump gear, with no pretense that they were Trump affiliated. They were businessmen, not political activists or volunteers. Their gear tended toward stronger, angrier messages, e.g. Lock her Up!, Hillary for Prison, Bill prefers Monica, too, Bomb the Shit out of Them, etc.
An example is an online store "The Art of Trump". It uses a logo that closely mirrors the Trump-Pense design.
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| Example of non-affiliated store |
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| Shirt from on-line unaffiliated store |
This mirrors what I observed at Trump rallies in New Hampshire and Florida, an active environment of Trump camp followers, pure entrepreneurs selling tee shirts and buttons with home-made Trump gear, with no pretense that they were Trump affiliated. They were businessmen, not political activists or volunteers. Their gear tended toward stronger, angrier messages, e.g. Lock her Up!, Hillary for Prison, Bill prefers Monica, too, Bomb the Shit out of Them, etc.
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| Ad copy for a shirt "Impeach This!" |
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| Boca Raton vender outside the Trump rally |
1 comment:
Very interesting and more evidence of grooming of the cult. I would note that the constant messaging is a necessary part of keeping the cult members engaged. Otherwise they may drift away. In reading the messages it certainly is clear that Trump's message is that they are embattled and that he (HE!) and his lieutenants are fighting...???
It's not very defined is it?
Some sort of internal threat to democracy? Government is going to take away their freedom? Muslims are invading?
Trump tells his cult that they are victims, that their grievances come from powerful forces whose goal is to exploit them. After a decade of portraying an authority on TV he has a credibility that enables him to make sweeping statements with impunity and few specifics or facts. The constant messaging and fear mongering with this vaguely ominous enemy is terrifying to the simple minds of his followers. Fox and other media companies are exploiting the same falsehoods for profit.
All the emails and other media have one goal: to separate cult members from their money. Nothing new or vague about that.
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