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Why Trump’s “Wait and See” Was Brilliant
If you hear someone hyperventilating over Trump’s reply on automatically accepting the election results, tell them to take a breath. First, remember, that 41 percent of people now think things are rigged. And most remember eight years of Democrats claiming that Bush was not in office legitimately, and Gore demanding a recount.
Contrary to received wisdom, Trump was brilliant to say he would wait to see if the election was rigged. Why? First, the media will pick this up, criticize it (which will make Trump supporters feel they are right to be concerned), and carry it into the ether for Mr. Trump … more earned media on his point.
Second and more important, saying he’d “wait and see” about the election outcome was the only answer that fit his entire raison d’être as a candidate: standing up to a corrupt system, uncowed, and fighting for fairness.
Had he said he’d accept any outcome, his supporters would have thought, “He’s effectively told them it is OK to cheat! Now they actually can cheat since he’s effectively conceded in advance and we’re screwed!”
Instead, now they think that this will be a caution to Democrats not to cheat, and if Trump loses, expect him – as his supporters will – to first verify that he actually lost fair and square, that they weren’t cheated – and only then accept defeat.
Anything less and they’d wonder what happened to their champion.
As with Trump’s pattern for the last year, he starts with an extreme statement (garnering earned media), and ends at a reasonable result. All his remark was saying last night, translated into safe, no-earned media speak, was “We’re going to make sure this election is fair.”
It would be a good message for the GOP to echo and support.
Published in General
Your filter is too strong for you to see it. Remember all the “free” publicity he garnered with that technique? It got him through the primaries– from zero to the nomination. No one thought it would work. Everyone thought is was stupid and yet – he won. Let’s just wait and see. He has not lost this yet. I know this is hard for you and many people to accept, but as a politician, he is a natural, actually I think I would call it brilliant.
Winning the nomination should not be confused with actually achieving anything. It is a prerequisite step to achieve what people who sit out to run for president are trying to do: win the presidency. Whether or not trump’s strategy turns out to be brilliant is largely a function of whether he is successful. In that, I agree with you that we should wait to see the outcome of the election. I just hope you’ll be willing to retract your claim of brilliance if, as looks likely, trump loses by a significant margin.
Let’s not over play this. In a narrow area, he is brilliant. He has out maneuvered 16 other candidates, won the Republican nomination, and effectively taken control of a national party… in less than 2 years! What level of accomplishment do you need to admit he is capable? He is already earned a position in the political history of the US. Whether or not he can add to that success is not certain – but I would not bet against him. He seems to thrive on long odds.
If he was to walk on water, would you then say “he obviously can’t swim”?
But he did! And it was incoherent. It came in the middle of a question about the sexual assault allegations.
That was it. No context. No explanation. No clear challenge to the media to report what he just said, and hit them for not giving the story oxygen. An irrelevancy buried in the middle of a denial. Not even something like “The Washington Post reported today on the Clinton campaign’s dirty tricks,” which might have helped.
Would you consider Mitt Romney a brilliant politician? How about John McCain?
No to both. They did not accomplish what this outsider did.
Won the Republican primary and then lost the election? Yes, they did.
This thinking is simple word matching: win nomination = win nomination. But the difference is like walking through an open gate into a walled city, versus having to scale the wall while being attacked on all sides to enter the city.
To think McCain overcame the same obstacles as Trump is a rhetorical position and not honest.
You know me so well!
Ah, well, I don’t recall saying Trump was brilliant, but that his answer was. There’s a difference.
And yes I’ll go for burnt but edible toast (but not call it brilliant) if my alternative is a plate of ashes.
If I may make an attempt at nuance… two thoughts:
First, there is a difference between being for X – say TPP – and then against TPP (and yet again secretly for it), and doing what Trump does – and here I tip my hat to Scott Adams, whose blog posts have been fascinating – saying something vivid that catches attention and paces him with his audience (e.g. ban Muslims) so the audience connect with him on an emotional level (yes! he gets what i’m scared of!) and then nuances and clarifies (ban until we can figure out how to make sure they aren’t terrorists, ban if from certain countries, etc) – which he now has credibility to do, but working out how to feasibly and fairly accomplish the goal. This is seen as being still on the same side of the issue – not unlike your lawyer negotiating for you, starting with a big ask, working back to the essentials, but still on side.
Second, I’m beginning to think there is an inability to hear hyperbole which is caused when there is deep fear or loathing of the possibility of a Trump presidency. It leads to literal interpretation of his every utterance, where his supporters understand a lot of it as joyfully provocative of a correctness they loathe.
To them this week his “–if we win!” was a funny line, not a serious plan, and that they were right was demonstrated by the fact that in the next sentence he then went on to clarify in the most reasonable terms what his campaign would do.
But you listen to our media and they carry the hyperbole (which they are now fact checking!!) without any of the qualifiers or explanations that followed. At least we know in their case it serves their interest to contend that he wants to destroy our institutions — about whose destruction they are strangely silent the rest of the time…
this clip reminds me of a story dad told – he was a private in WWII, moving at night, and a French column was up ahead. The commander of the American forces was loosing his mind over the fact that the French had their vehicles’ lights on. He zoomed back and forth, and finally found a young private who spoke French, put him in his jeep, and zoomed up to the head of the french column, asking why they had their lights on an didn’t they know that made it more likely the Germans would then know where they were and shoot at them. Apparently the French commander replied “Exactly! And then we’ll know where the Germans are!”
As if Hillary and the Democrats would not raise a stink if they lose. Right. Get real. We know how you guys are. Can you say “hanging chads?”
Based on the author’s reply in #72 above, she seems to be arguing that Trump’s supporters have a very keen perception of what Mr. Trump is actually saying, versus the mostly-unintelligible nonsense the non-supporters hear. To me this sounds like cynical sophistry. Or, maybe it is only proof that I lack the necessary mental abilities to understand Mr. Trump’s strategy for victory.
There is cheating going on now and current efforts add to the rigging that is already in place in the system. Anyone who votes after coming to this country illegally and staying illegally is voting illegally and part of the rigging. Anyone who votes using the name of a deceased person still on the voting roll is doing the same. Part of the already in place rigging is the selective enforcement of federal law as applied to Clinton (not the only instance) and the one-sided media delivery.
Here’s my perspective. I accept everything that has been presented through various media with enough substantive evidence that it is essentially a proven fact. That means more than enough for both candidates. In Clinton’s case the evidence shows felony acts in violation of federal law and for which our present Justice Department selectively will not act. In Trump’s case there are a number of allegations by individuals that might have been criminal acts but no charges were pursued. Democrats, media, and the current law enforcement bureaucracy are obviously willing to tolerate Clinton’s criminality and must be presumed to continue that pattern if she were POTUS. This would likely rule out impeachment under any foreseeable circumstances. Trump does not enjoy this level of support which means, to me at least, that there will be a check on his acts as POTUS including a reasonable opportunity for impeachment if circumstances merit.