By Brian McKay
For many Democrats the party is starting now with the certainty that this will be a banner year with Trump taking the nomination for the Republican Presidential candidate. Certainly, it looks really good right now. Polls are in favor of Democrats not just in the Presidential election but in many elections for Congress as well.
The problem is that those polls reflect right now and there is still a long way to go.
One of the most unpredictable things in the world is a master salesperson. They can tailor themselves to fit almost any situation and bring people to buy what they are selling. Trump is that master salesperson. No one has pulled such an effective sales job since Ronald Reagan made use of his acting chops.
The Great Orange One has done an amazing job of selling himself so far. You have to give him credit for being able to say what angry, white people want to hear. Talk of a new Great Wall, mass deportation and blocking all Muslims from the country have been much like the sweet tunes played by the Pied Piper on his magic pipe to lure the rats away from town. In similar fashion, Donald Trump has used his own magic pipe to lure the voting bloc to him that desperately wanted his message of intolerance in the first place. Whether it has been real or not is a totally different story.
Honestly, does anyone really believe that Donald Trump is religious and that the Bible is his favorite book? No one at his claimed church has ever seen him and when asked which is his favorite, the Old or New Testament, he simply replied, “Both of them.” Yeah, that might be considered dodging a question you just can’t answer.
Still he has managed to sell his religiousness. Is it because he found an audience willing to smooth over things as long as they are told what they want to hear? Honestly it doesn’t matter at this point. What really matters now is how he starts selling to the centrists now that the nomination is all but locked up.
Very likely the truly bombastic Trump statements will be spoken of no more. The message will be tailored toward the middle class that has seen household incomes drop while the wealthy have made a fortune over the last few years of tepid recovery. “Make America Great Again”, will be customized to the hope of creating jobs and lifting the middle class back up. Having learned from the mistake of his comment that women that have abortions should be jailed, he will keep enough generic rah-rah-rah in what he says so as to not alienate the wrong people. Who needs specifics when theatrics work so much better?
He is no longer bound to things like religious beliefs, walls and deportations. He can feel free to market himself to a new segment of voters. The man who can shift positions as needed, will certainly do so. Democrats will say that he cannot attract the minorities and women that he has alienated, but one should never count out the lures of a master salesman. Coupled with the short memories of most American’s when told what they want to hear, he could possibly bring many of those alienated groups back into the fold.
And what of Hilary? Well it seems that Hilary can’t really sell shit. She isn’t a salesperson, she is an effective leader and showed this while Secretary of State, but her showmanship is almost non-existent. A true test of her ability to adjust will come in the first debate with the Donald. Most likely she can’t hold a candle to the display he will most certainly put out there.
Don’t start the celebrations yet Democrats. Instead you better go hire a sales coach, an improve troop and an acting coach for Hilary and then train the shit out of her.
zenrupt
Brian McKay is a co-founder of zenruption and has a degree in political science from Gonzaga University. His sales style is very chill but he would relish the chance to debate Trump and hit him with some quick witted returns. Come to think of it, zenruption does bombast sometimes. Thanks for the inspiration oh Great Orange One.
Feature photo courtesy WhyGuides, under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license
