This was the first time I’ve ever bet real money on an election.
And I won.
Even I’m a bit surprised. But only a bit.
In mid-October, I posted “Why Trump Could Still Win” at a time when major news outlets said that a Trump win was virtually impossible.
Good ol’ Michael Moore (yeah he’s still around) made a far more eloquent prediction at “5 Reasons Why Trump Will Win”.
Of course, way back in July 2015, I took note of Trump’s social media campaign, and realized that this election would be won or lost on social media.
This was also true for Obama in 2008 and 2012, but one major, major thing had changed: The Facebook and Twitter demographic.
It used to be that these were filled to the brim with liberal college students.
Now there’s a much more diversified crew. The rural “red” states are much better connected, and much easier to reach.
My political leanings are complicated. I don’t fit nicely into either of the traditional Liberal/Conservative camps.
Similarly, Trump doesn’t fit well into these boxes.
More importantly, I think his entire campaign was total BS, and he knew it.
I remember the Donald Trump back in the Apprentice days, and I liked that Donald.
He’s older and a perhaps slightly senile now, but I still think he’s fairly intelligent. Probably a lot more intelligent that he would ever let on.
And that’s smart.
Nobody likes a smarty-pants.
For instance, I don’t think Trump is actually religious, pro-life, anti-gay, or anti-immigrant, but he spent his entire campaign making statements that implied he was all of those things.
I’m pretty sure this was just simple strategy.
He ran the numbers and realized that it was easier to get votes from the red states than the blue ones.
Side note: This also shows how our electoral system no longer works properly, and we desperately need proportional representation.
Remember my comment from summer 2015?
“Wow, Trump really knows how to play the social media game. I feel like he might win based on that alone.”It was a bold, risky strategy, and one that nearly backfired spectacularly, but in the end it worked.
In any case, it’s now very clear that the way to win an election is to figure out what people like, then just keep telling them what they want to hear over and over again.
This was always true to a certain extent, but has been greatly facilitated and amplified by services like Facebook and Twitter.
In any case, my follow-up prediction to Trump winning has always been that he won’t be that bad of a president.
Not a great president, but probably better than Nixon or Bush 2 (yes, I’ve set the bar low).
He’ll shake things up a bit, but I doubt he’ll start any new wars, or act on much of the crazy isolationist crap he droned on about during his campaign.
Two weeks from now, everyone’s attention will be focused on some new big thing, and life will go on, not much different than before.