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I have been saying this for nearly 10 years. How the fuck does Trump do it? Trump has had a lifetime of being a conman, of failing at business, of screwing over his partners and his employees at every turn. Yet for all this he STILL has people who crawl and cower towards him and still act like he is the pinnacle of business success when he is the pinnacle of business failure. His father, Fred Trump, was a grade A asshole (Woody Guthrie even mentioned him in one of his songs) but he actually WAS good at business. All risks that he took were calculated and he planned out his real estate plans very carefully and he absolutely took into account what advisors had to say. He was a terrible boss, yes, and an incredibly racist man, but he still consistently made money off his investments while Trump never did. Even in the 90s when Trump was increasingly becoming a joke there were still people that thought of his as highly successful when he had just gone through a string of embarrassing failures.
Just how does he do it?
Simple answer, (many) people are uneducated/dumb and these people love a showman who tells them what they want to hear.
As I understand it, the public perception of Trump was distorted by how he was portrayed on The Apprentice: https://www.psypost.org/new-research-sheds-light-on-the-influence-of-the-apprentice-on-donald-trumps-political-rise/
The producers at NBC had to jump through a lot of hoops to make Trump appear competent. Their chief marketing officer from that time is very sorry for what he did: https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america
Once Trump became the republican candidate, the right-wing media took up the responsibility of filtering and distorting what their audience got to see and hear about Trump.
The underlying problem is that Washington Democrats are largely worthless sleazebags. When you have two parties that both screw over everyone so that billionaires can get richer, often people just throw up their hands and vote for someone, anyone, who might be different. Trump is different.
And of course many people, tens of millions apparently, love having someone to hate. This is, of course, the underlying motto of today's Republican party.
Trumps opponents are gormless democrats who are so out of touch that even when healthcare is the most important issue to 75+% of americans, they will proudly claim that "universal health care will never ever happen." Or that "Healthcare isn't their highest priority," as if 75% of Americans were yearning for bailing out the same banks that they all hate.
I was also referring to Trump before he got into politics. Even when he debuted in the 70s and early 80s there were tons of newspapers who pointed how just how full of shit the man was, but there were still others that bought the lie that he was the next Rockefeller when he was absolutely not.
Yeah i sure as shit do not know.
He has no redeeming qualities and seems to make the worst possible choice at every juncture but he inevitably seems to fail upwards.
I have a few observations.
He lies about everything all the time with no shame. As in, reality doesn't matter it only matters what people hear you say.
He's always the centre of attention. He's always doing something controversial and is constantly on everyone's mind.
He's offensive. He offends the sensibilities of every rational person. Everything he says makes half the world feel exasperated and frustrated and angry, while the other half chuckles along because hes made the leftards angry.
He thinks and talks like an uneducated boomer, and that makes other uneducated idiots feel validated rather than feeling stupid.
It's like if you think of all the ways we influence other people and show our worth to others, all of the most immoral and unethical tactics that actually work in the real world seem to come to Trump instinctively. He doesn't even have to think about it. I think that helps him instantly jump to conclusions (linkedin filter: he's decisive and a risk taker!) and have the unearned dunning-kruger arrogance to plow ahead (LF: he radiates confidence and stands up for his beliefs!) and wreck the country just to make some numbers go up for people who otherwise want for nothing.
Or maybe he's just being controlled by malicious forces. (linkedin: he has high-level connections in the international community!)
Actual deal with the Devil?