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Cory Steinle

Professor Berkman, Professor Beem


LA 297(c)
Final Paper
The Trump Paradox Against All Odds
Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States next January. To do
so, he put together one of the most oddly normal coalitions weve ever seen. He mobilized an
invisible rural voter base. He ran a campaign on populism while being the epitome of what
populists have historically run against. Hes lived in a dystopian unreality of slander and lies,
while at the moment, everything hes worked for is becoming our very reality. The paradoxical
nature of this election will continue to puzzle political scientists for years. There are dozens of
factors that contributed to Trumps victory. But when the dust settles, I believe that the fairest
assessment of Trumps candidacy will be this: while Trump refused to conform to the standards
of traditional campaigning, his destiny was predetermined as the Republican candidate
following eight years of the Obama administration, macro-scale factors such as economic
growth, Presidential approval ratings, and the tendency of the White House to change parties
made this Presidential election Trumps race to lose. Hillary Clinton was not able to overcome
this destiny. Simply put, Donald Trump did not win this election -- Hillary Clinton lost. What
was so shocking about this election is that it never seemed like Trump was winning.
To win this November, Clinton was fighting an uphill battle. As we learned from the
article Five Key Lessons from Donald Trumps Surprising Victory, we see that early political
science forecasts were, on average, correct. Large scale factors such as the economy and
Presidential approval ratings proved to be the best indicators of which major party would win.

Trump raised less money, had weaker grassroots, and aired fewer ads. Party loyalty was still
present, with early exit polls indicating that 90% of Republicans stuck with Trump. These
numbers are similar to Romneys in 2012, a candidate with an incomparable demeanor and
personality. Regardless of these smaller factors, he was able to win. Part of this is because
politics is rotational in 1992, 2002, 2008, and 2016, either the Democrats or the Republicans
took full control of Congress and the Presidency in one election. The cyclical nature of our
elections coupled with larger factors involving the overall assessment of the economy and the
current state of the union presented a certain bias for Americans to lean towards supporting a
Republican candidate in the 2016 election. As political supporters, we sometimes get lost in all
of the miniscule details of an election this election proved that at the end of the day, the minute
details do not matter as much as we once thought they did.
In effect, this was Trumps election to lose. Large scale factors and early political
forecasts indicated that a Republican would likely ascend to the office of the Presidency. It is
unclear whether or not Trump even considered this data, but regardless, he created an unreality
in which voters were unable to distinguish fact from fiction. As Matt Jordan suggested, this
phenomenon began during the primary process, where Trump used the debates as a platform for
further clouding political lines.
From the announcement of his campaign to the concluding remarks of it, Trump has
made bizarrely false & unprovable claims. During his first speech declaring his presidential bid,
he claimed, When Mexico sends its peopletheyre bringing drugs. Theyre bringing crime.
Theyre rapists. This accusatory remark cannot be proven it is not based in fact or reason. It
is false, and when he said it, people loved it. He topped initial polls, with some alt-right
figureheads such as Ann Coulter declaring, Immigration is the new litmus test for true

Republicanism. Trump understood this, and he continued this trend. He used rhetoric to make
a similar argument to what far-right parties have done in Europe: declaring that economic
success & national security is mutually exclusive to open immigration. Using phrases such as I
heard it from a lot of different people, my people tell me, and the _______, Trump
scapegoated latinos/latinas for crimes that never even happened. He was only able to accomplish
this within the lens of his unreality, because this simply isnt true. In an article from The
Conversation titled In a post-truth election, clicks trump facts it was shown that over 70% of
Trumps statements are dubbed false or mostly false by Polifact. In comparison, Clintons
rating was 26%.
The article Ratings-driven presidential debates are weakening American democracy by
the Washington Post claims that Trump knows that controversial statements draw immediate
coverage. Our ratings-driven media thrives on entertaining coverage, regardless of whether the
coverage is true or false. As discussed in class, it is a well-documented fact that the act of
explaining or denouncing a lie can actually reinforce it because people tend to equate
familiarization with the truth. By this logic, the more that a lie is called out for being a lie, the
more difficult it becomes to distinguish it from the truth. Trumps constant bombardment of lies
confused Americans, myself included. As Dr. Matt Jordan highlighted during his lecture, this
unreality that Trump created in which Americans could not distinguish fact from fiction
resulted in the presidential election shifting from a policy debate to a personality contest.
Theres a distinct lack of consensus among what the alt-right actually stands for, which is eerily
similar of the radical far-right parties of Europe. This lack of precise policy proves a point
generally speaking, it seems that Trump supporters trusted Trump, or more significantly, just
didnt trust Clinton.

Trumps creation of an unreality and his subsequent victory seemingly confirms the
idea that Americans dont always care for the truth; theyd rather be entertained. Trump
understood this principle and applied it to the debate arena. Twenty-four million Americans
viewed the FOX and CNN primary debates. To compare, only 7.6 million people on average
watched the 2012 GOP debates. By the point of the primary debates, Trump already had a
reputation for being a demagogue through his xenophobic tendencies and plans to build a wall on
the Mexican-American border. In these debates, Trump issued all-out-attacks on his opponents,
using rhetoric such as little Marco and lyin Ted to demean his opponents. By doing this,
Trump received tons of free media coverage. Despite the fact that at times his opinions were
fringe at best, Trump still received enough press that his views were constantly in the minds of
voters. Everybody, regardless of demographics, knew Trump wanted to build a wall. A fraction
of people knew Clintons true stance on immigration, other than the fact that it wasnt Trumps.
The elementary fact of the matter is this Trump was invincible. He started with the
odds in his favor, and he held on to those odds, regardless of what polls said. His supporters
were passionate, energized, and excited about his campaign. Few were excited about Hillary in
the same way. She wasnt buzzing in the news. She was not the center of attention. Her policy
was hardly exciting, often citing that she wanted to build a better future for our children.
Trump juxtaposed Clintons lackluster energy with his own breed of heterogeneous populism.
While he wasnt representative of the political revolution in the same sense that Senator
Sanders was, he used rhetoric to make people believe he represented the idea of anti-elitism,
even though he is an elite. As Dr. Gastil discussed during his lecture, when Trump didnt pay his
taxes, he claimed, That just makes me smart. During the Celebrity Apprentice scandal, he
dubbed his comments as just locker room talk. When pundits attacked his lack of political

experience, he maintained that Hillary Clinton was a liar and untrustworthy. His anti-elite
populist message coupled with his rhetorical mastery allowed Trump to live peacefully within his
unreality, creating a strong defense against a comfortable Clinton who sought after his
supporters. Moreover, the excitement of this message mobilized a new type of voter in rural
battleground states that helped propel him to the Presidency.
The dualistic nature of American politics contributed to Trumps victory in the sense that
Trump served as the perfect antithesis to the establishment politics. In his unreality, if Clinton
was a liar, Americans tend to assume that Trump is telling the truth. If Clinton is low-energy,
then Trump must be high-energy. If immigrants were finding success, this meant that white
people werent. In my view, Trump wasnt anything specifically he was everything Hillary
wasnt. He bred a hate for her amongst Americans, citing her emails, her speeches, and her
shady dealings with the DNC. He claimed that he was paying for everything himself, often times
citing that not a single fortune 500 company CEO had endorsed him. While declaring that a
Clinton presidency would be another four years of a disastrous Obama Presidency, he promised
to Make America Great Again, vowing to drastically change the political dynamic in
Washington, just as Obama vowed eight years prior.
At the end of the day, just a few of these factors matter. On the macro scale, America was
economically ready for Trump to happen. As highlighted in Far Right Parties in Europe,
economic crises do not benefit the far-right. In times of economic disparity, establishment
politicians are trusted to fix things. When the economy is good, fringe social views can emerge,
since establishment politicians arent needed to oversee the economy. In American politics, there
was a political cleavage in which Trump could emerge the alt-right. With the economy doing
well, Trump was able to tap into more social issues immigration, abortion, and campaign

finance while simultaneously criticizing establishment politicians for the great migration of
manufacturing jobs. In his unreality, he blames the Mexicans & poor trade deals for this
migration. In true reality, its very unlikely that these jobs are coming back, and its very
unlikely that Trump can deliver on any of his promises.
This essay was just as sloppy as Trumps campaign. But it was structured just like it.
First, I presented a fringe hypothesis -- Trump was supposed to win from the start. Then, I
started throwing around a lot of weird ideas, all at once. Hopefully, my rhetoric was solid
enough to put you into a trance of unreality. At that point, I could say whatever I want. Lastly,
my opponents (you, the grader) were unable to disprove enough of my points to prove that I am
completely wrong. So, in effect, I barely win this paper. I win the electoral vote (to me, thats a
A-), but I lose the general election.
On a realistic note, its far too early to determine how or why Trump won. But my best
guess begins with this; pundits predicted as early as 2014 that the Republican nominee for
President would win. Im sure if they knew Trump would win the nomination, theyd have
thought differently. However, he did. Whether by accident or on purpose, Trump created an
unreality in which he could say or do whatever he wanted and still be able to recover in the
polls a week later. This unreality was born out of an ignorance to the truth, excessive media
coverage, and the idea that the American people would rather be entertained than politically
educated. As a consequence, the general election shifted from a policy debate to a personality
contest. Trump won this contest, because he was a populist one who, due to the dualistic
nature of American politics, served as the perfect antithesis to his opponent, Hillary Clinton. As
Trumps antithesis and an unexciting establishment politician, Hillary was unable to steal enough

of Trumps voters nor mobilize enough liberal-leaning non-voters to win key battleground states,
and ultimately, the election. Trump screwed up but not bad enough to lose to Hillary.

Trumps aggressive debate tactics and unwillingness to accept the truth resonated well
with an audience of agitated Americans.
Trump served as the perfect antithesis to the establishment politics, and given his
tumultous nature of his candidacy, he needed the unreality he created through effective media
manipulation and rhetorical prose to prevent Clinton from stealing his votes.

Points to hit on; Matt Jordan, heterogeneous populism.

As the fire dwindles, I think back to what David Nashaw said of Trump in the summer of
2016 As a performer, Trump isnt unique. Other politicians have been great performers. But
the performance was a means to an end. With Trump, the performance is a means to itself.

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