Personality Vortex

This post is primarily about one article:  http://qz.com/841049/election-2016-america-has-elected-its-own-berlusconi-in-donald-trump-now-its-about-to-repeat-italys-biggest-mistake/

Let me summarize the point for you clearly: If you make this about Trump's personality, (which is easy to do because his neon physical appearance, lifestyle, and criminality is so very larger-than-life,) you will make him much stronger politically. Remember when Hillary was content to let Trump hang himself with his own rope by letting him just keep talking? How well did that work for her?

Making this about Trump's villainy is handing the narrative right on over to him. Consider just for a moment the power of name recognition. Trump's name is out there now in an irrevocable way. He now has the most name recognition of any president in history. The best.

If he is what is in the mind of the voters, the voters will vote for him. All of this constant onslaught of attacking his moral character because of his amoral cabinet choices (military leaders, known racists and scam artists) plays into Trump's strategy, which is to simply keep the narrative all about him.

Obama's personality was over the top. First black president, played basket ball, attended Black Church. Smarmy-annoying-lawyer Chicago-Politician attitude. Impeccable political strategy. There was a lot to like there for metrosexuals, but what most lefties didn't realize, is there was even MORE there to HATE for ammosexuals!

McCain and Romney lost to Obama in very significant ways, because they got in what I call Obama's "personality vortex." The more corrupt, wall street, silver-spooned, drug using, pandering, Joker-like they made him out to be - the more they turned Obama into a super villain - the more Obama's victory was assured. "Bad press is better than no press" means that if your opponent isn't currently making headlines and you create a headline for him by attacking him, you have just done your opponent a huge favor.

Look at Ronald Reagan's personality vortex. It was so powerful that after his eight years he even got George H. W. Bush elected, far more potent than Obama's vortex. Even more perilously for the people of the USA, Bill Clinton's sax-playing personality vortex was so strong that he got reelected even as he passed overtly racist policies, pumping up the prison industrial complex, dismantling the public safety net, and sending jobs out of our country with NAFTA.

Now we are caught in Trump's personality vortex. It is exponentially stronger than even Reagan's was, and the progressives are not only going to lose 2020, but at this rate they will lose 2024 as well. Instead I strongly recommend the following strategies:

1. Talk about POLICIES, not about PEOPLE (unless they are your people, but then you must focus on policies all the more to compensate.) In the face of a Trump personality vortex, you must show why your IDEAS are better than their ideas, because in so far as this is about individual virtue, the bigger personality will win regardless of how virtuous they aren't.
2. Have policies that matter! Propping up Obamacare as it fails to contain health care costs was a fatal error for Hillary. Even though Medicare For All (espoused by Sanders) was seen as less politically viable - it is that very controversy that would have focused more attention on Hillary. More importantly, Medicare For All had it's own personality vortex as a policy that would have attracted votes. In today's era of mechanization and radical loss of jobs, the left should be all about Basic Income right now, but instead they flounder while Elon Musk is left to proselyte the idea on his own. Now that the Electoral College has proved to fail to protect us against demagogues, how is it that progressives aren't turning this slave-era form of voter suppression into a major political issue?
3. Point attacks AWAY from the opponent. It's NOT Trump's racist cabinet picks when the whole GOP stands by, holds their nose and nods - that is the entire GOP failing to protest Trump's appointing of racists and charlatans while militarizing our government. That isn't Trump, it's the whole GOP. Make them OWN that. More importantly, as with Medicare For All, it isn't just the GOP to blame, it is all of us: our country is out of touch with the fact it would be better for businesses (because of international competition with government subsidized health care for their employees) and individuals (who's insurance premiums are clearly raising faster than their taxes would have from a single payer system) alike to to have a single payer system.
4. Seize the Change brand, and hold on to it for dear life. Hillary's status-quo strategy was ill conceived from the beginning. Manufacturing jobs and fly-over states are so compromised that it will be a very long time before protecting the status quo will be a viable political strategy.  How did the DEMOCRATS become the pro-war, pro-insurance, pro-corporate-oligarchy, defending status-quo party? That happened when the DNC thought conservatism would be a good way for a progressive party to win 2016. Wrong. 

By death gripping the change brand, generalizing blame and focusing on policies that matter, it is far easier to draw attention to the more progressive candidate, steering clear of Trump's personality vortex, and by attrition making him seem like an old boring idea from the past, along with the GOP and their anti-people agenda. Don't let conservatives scapegoat Trump so they don't have to own their own garbage. Don't let progressives use Trump as an excuse for their own political ineptitude and lack of conviction. Every time you see some post or article demonizing Trump, remind them of the fact they are erring, drop something along these lines in the comments: