Rubak.com

How Trump Got So Popular

Posted May 27, 2020

For those people who still can`t comprehend how Trump got so many loyal followers, I'll explain it step by step. (For the record, I didn't vote for him and not the biggest fan, but I've watched the ongoing situation very closely.)

TL;DR version:
So many news articles against Trump have been proven false, that every time a bad article is written, Trump supporters:
A. Assume it's also false
B. Increase their support of him against "the enemy"

In short, if they hadn't lied so much to try to stop him, they'd've had a better chance to show the true negatives about him.

Detailed version:




1. Corrupt Politicians
Senate & House Of Reps salary = $174-223,000 (source)
President's salary = $400,000 (plus ~170k in "allowances") (source)
Nice salaries, but people were noticing all these politicians were becoming way wealthier than even these nice salaries could explain.
Many don't remember the multi-million dollar book deals and speaking fees (source). They remember the "Senator so-and-so caught taking bribes" news stories (source)
Plus, it's not a secret that many politicians' votes are based on what stocks their "cousin in law" is holding. (AKA Not legally in my hands, so not legally a problem, but I'll magically end up w/ that money when no one's looking)
So yeah, people are sick of seeing someone w/ little real life business experience walk into politics, do a horrible job and somehow, miraculously become very wealthy.

2. Wanting Change
And worse, while the president has term limits, congress doesn't. (Remember, congress handles laws & taxes, the president only signs off or vetoes them and somehow gets either credit or blame for stuff others did)
And people have watched "career politicians" staying in office 20, 30, even 40 years passing bad laws, increasing taxes and not fixing any of the things they campaign on. (source)They'd spend time on the campaign trial every election season, get re-elected, then go back to bad politics as usual.
So people are wanting politicians who will not just stay in for their own personal wealth, but actually come in and try to fix things, make people happy and get out and back to their own businesses.

What is this? A billionaire I've known about and everyone has loved for years wants to get into politics? (source)(source)
Sure he's eccentric, but what billionaire isn't? He can't be bought like career politicians. He's dealt with New York real estate, so he's seen the same corruption first hand from OUR point of view. He's had to make those corrupt "grease the wheels" payments everyone else has had to put up with.
AND everyone seems to love him. (source) He always gets good interviews in news. He got accolades from people like Jesse Jackson for his work in helping the black community. (source) Worst anyone said about him (before he announced his bid for presidency) was they didn't like his hair or his tv show "The Apprentice". (To be fair, this doesn't include bankers whom he savaged by using backrupcy laws as a weapon against them)

3. Corrupt News
It was harder to spot in the old days (70's 80's 90's) when the 4 major news shows (ABC, CBS, NBC and then CNN) were the only real source of wide spread information, (not counting newspapers) but even back then, you could tell who the news people liked or didn't like based on how the stories were written.
Hint: Democrats got MUCH nicer coverage then Republicans, even when they do the exact same thing. And nothing has changed recently.
Examples:
Bush Sr.(R) raises taxes* = 1 term president only (89-93) (source)
Clinton(D) raises taxes* = reelected in 1996 (source)
Clinton(D) smoking but not inhaling weed (wtf?) = 1993 hero (source)
Bush Jr.(R) DUI back in 1976 = unfit for 2001 presidency (source)
Bush Jr.(R) possible drug use long ago = unfit for 2001 presidency (source)
Bush Jr.(R) Mid-east war issues = Horrible mass murdering criminal (source)
Obama(D) smokes weed = 2008 hero (source)
Obama(D) drinks (favorite drink = beer) = 2008 hero (source)
Obama(D) Mid-east war issues, and even increased military actions Started by Bush = 2-term hero (source)
*(Remember what I said in section 2 about presidents and taxes)

Fox News was born in 1996 as intentional opposition to the way the other sources were presenting the information. Suddenly, folks got a different point of view on the news.
Plus now, in the days of social media, where anyone can post stories, pics, audio and vids and small town issues can be shared world-wide, it became much harder for news organizations to ignore stories they "weren't interest in". Those stories were showing a different picture than the broad news organizations were trying to tell. But even then, the details of those small-town stories were being spun into news articles that, when compared to the details, didn't add up.

4. Continuous Attacks Proven False
Remember when I said there was basically nothing bad said abut Trump before entering politics? Go check. He's said many of the same things about illegal immigration and other topics for years, and everyone seems to have loved him.

He announces he's running as a republican and... Presto! America's most hated.

And fine, when you go into politics, you get scrutinized more. But the news against Trump was almost immediately negative, and equally fast, quickly started to be proven false. And it wasn't just a small news story here or there.

In fact, an average of 1 anti-Trump news story per week (often the biggest story of the week) since he announced his entry turned out to be false. One. Per. Week. Over the past almost 4 years now. One incomplete (but still 125+) list of false news can be found here, (seriously, if you click no other link, click and honestly read this one). That's just crazy. These happened for many reasons. A rumor heard without double checking facts. Reports showing the exact opposite of what the facts later showed. And sometimes, just sometimes, clearly fake, out of the blue with no correct details whatsoever. There's actually cases of news reporters admitting to intentionally posting false information (AKA fake news) because they dislike Trump. Some people in the news have lost their job over these lies and mistakes.

It's like Trump correctly pointed out that news often has an agenda or angle they push (calling it "fake news") and the news responded with "Oh yeah? Well we'll show you how fake we can be".

Oh, and don't get me started on the "fact checking" groups. Claiming Trump's comment of "1 in 3 women experience sexual assault" isn't factually correct when the exact statistic he referenced was 31.8%? That's really not close enough for you? Or the manager of a major fact checking organization trying to shame Trump on Twitter by quoting something which, turns out, was never said by him, but by Bill Gates instead? I mean c'mon man.

And here's the most important part: Every time one of those stories turned out to be false, his supports felt more and more justified their "Us vs the corrupt news and politics" view.

So:
He got supporters because he was a political outsider
Then news against him turned out to be false
Which bolstered their support for him
Which pushed those against him to find more bad things to report
Which (often due to bad research, ethics or both) turned out to be wrong/false/fake
Which bolstered their support for him
Which pushed those against him to find more bad things to report
Which (often due to bad research, ethics or both) turned out to be wrong/false/fake
Which bolstered their support for him
etc. etc.
Eventually Trump supporters got so sick of the fake news against Trump that they now simply assume everything bad about him is fake, or simply worthless.

So why did Trump get so popular? Because his enemies tried to fight him by lying so much. Had they simply told the truth, and said things that was factually true, both good and bad, then the bad things would've carried MUCH more weight.

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