Warning: potentially offensive islamophobic image below.
Alas, it seems Donald Trump is slightly cleverer than we thought.
The two major parties in the USA, the Democrats and the Republicans, are choosing their candidates for November’s presidential elections. The candidates are campaigning hard: the selection is done by all voters who register to join one of the two selections, in votes that take place state by state over several months (and there’s not even an NEC to over-turn the result).
Obama is a Democrat President: as he’s served two terms in office, he can’t run for President this year. Hillary Clinton wants to be the Democratic candidate, and at the moment it doesn’t look like anyone can stop her. The Republicans are starting from scratch – so their contest is the interesting one.
Unfortunately, for the Republicans, they don’t have any serious front runners, but they do have joke ones – and joke ones have been known to be selected and go one to win the presidency. It looked like Jeb Bush was going to be the joke candidate this time round: his father and brother have already been president. Both were spectacularly ignorant but knew how to give a good (enough) speech and appeal to Middle America. Between them they did great harm. Jeb was not quite as dim as either of them, but was limbering up ready to carry on the harm his predecessor relatives had done and let big business run the US, until… Donald Trump came along.
Trump is a massively successful businessperson: in other words, he was given his father’s property development business and went on to make it even bigger. He showed that under capitalism, anyone can become rich – as long as you choose the right father. He diversified into becoming a bit of a celebrity: he fronted the US “Apprentice” programme, for example. He makes Alan Sugar look like Bambi.
Trump had a trial run at becoming the Republican candidate for US President in 2000, dropping out early on. This time he was ready, announcing his candidacy last summer. Since then, he has wielded a masterful media strategy.
In the US, you need serious megabucks to run for President – which is Trump’s major qualification for the job. Much of the money is spent on TV advertising: it’s less about voters choosing between political parties or different policies and much more about who can make the hardest sell. (That prompted the genius of the Obama campaign: by relying on individuals to build the vote through social media alongside the national TV ads, Obama’s support came to more than the sum of its parts – but we digress.)
The BBC has pulled together some figures. •They quote NBC News as having calculated that the presidential candidates spent nearly $120 million between them… in 2015. That’s just the warm-up year. •Supporters of Texas Senator Ted Cruz have bought up $4 million worth of advertising to air over the next few weeks. •The Bush campaign has reportedly spent $41 million on TV ads already and has booked up a further $19 million of TV ads to run over the next two months. His support is falling. •Some $9 has been spent on TV ads for Ohio Governor John Kasich: his support rose at first, but he is now stuck well back in the race.
As it is TV advertising which wins the US presidential election (we know it does; it’s in the textbook), US pundits were wondering when Trump was going to catch up. He is well in the lead among the Republican contenders as a result of making banal political statements, many of them playing the race card, which the media have been reporting free of charge. But he hasn’t done much TV advertising yet, they point out – so when will he start?
This week came the answer. Trump put out his first campaign TV advert. His first ad is, at 30 seconds, quite short. It is sickeningly racist, astonishingly ignorant – and will appeal to the apolitical, blue collar white voter who really does believe that yes, the world is that simple, just like a John Wayne western.
Trump repeats his call for Muslims to be banned from entering the US (see above), and he backs this up with images of terrorists, as if that was how Muslims look. He wants a wall built along the border with Mexico – which he suggests Mexico should pay for! It finishes with John Wayne – sorry! – Donald Trump promising to “make America great again”.
By repeating these extremist views, which had already been well covered in the press, Trump received lots more free column inches, as the media rushed to confirm that these views were in the ad. He even leaked details of the ad to the Washington Post –which then previewed it. It takes some savvy to organise free publicity for your paid advert.
The BBC has pointed out that Trump has said he is a bit short of money and it hinted that this may be why he has not done so many ads. It quotes his campaign team as having said they are planning to spent around $2 million a week on TV ads in the first couple of states to vote, but also points out that no one has any evidence that this time has been booked. The BBC is bewildered, but concludes that Trump may be a late convert to TV ads but is on the bandwagon now.
There is another, if more sinister, explanation. Trump won’t give a cent more of his immense personal fortune or a dime more from his campaign coffers than he has to. And while he can get so much free publicity, why should he? It’s column inches, not advertising jingles, that have put him in the lead so far. If it’s not broken, why fix it? While the other candidates are using the same old format of polished little sound bites which air between TV programmes, Trump is being talked about and to in the current affairs programmes, where he can come across as someone already in the mainstream of politics. No other potential candidate can get that kind of coverage.
When the Great British (OK, London) public saw Boris Johnson acting the buffoon on a TV news comedy programme, they thought it would be quite harmless to elect him as London Mayor – and it might even provide a few laughs. It hasn’t. Boris, and even more so his shady band of advisors, have ruthlessly implemented Tory policy across the capital and as a result there are many homeless, insecurely homed, worse off, unhappy, unemployed, under-employed, hungry, desperate people who are not laughing now. Trump is playing the same game. We have to make the USA wake up and make sure we do not get the same result.
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