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| Source:The Rubin Report- talking to political cartoonist Scott Adams. |
"Dave Rubin of The Rubin Report talks to Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert) about his newest book “Win Bigly” about how Donald Trump used the power of persuasion to win the election, Trump’s negotiating strategies and tactics, the trend of ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ the crumbling mainstream media, the Trump/Russia controversy, his predictions for future candidates and the future of Trump, and more."
From The Rubin Report
Is Donald Trump the best salesman we've ever seen in American politics as far as getting people to buy what he's selling regardless of the quality of products that he's selling, or is he the best conman we've ever seen in American politics? If you look at his agenda and how unpopular it is and his lack of success in getting anything that he ran on 2016 passed in Congress, he's not a very good salesman.
Running for president and even getting elected President, is obviously a hell of a lot different than doing the job and getting people to support what you're doing. A 33-35% approval rating out of 100% by the way, is not a very good record as far as selling your presidency and your agenda. So in this sense at least he's the worst salesman perhaps we've ever seen in American politics, at least to this point, because only a third of the country is buying what he's doing right now.
Donald Trump literally operates in a fact free world. It's not what the truth actually is that concerns him, because the truth is generally bad about him. It's what he can literally get away with that concerns him. This is why I mentioned the conman part because if the conman literally operated from the truth and told people he has all of this junk to sell you or this scam you should invest in and give the conman most of the money that the customer would never see a dime on and would lose a lot of money instead, the conman would never be successful, obviously. Donald Trump operates in the same fact free world that a conman operates from. It's not the truth thats important, but what he can get away with and what he can get people to believe.
One thing I'll give Donald Trump credit for is that he's a master salesman/conman at getting people who now hate American politics (thanks to the Republican Party and Democratic Party) to buy what he's selling. He's great with labeling people and situations and great with political catch phrases. "Make America great again." Well, if you get past the small point that most Americans including myself already think America is great and thought America was great back in 2008-09 when George W. Bush was still President, who could possibly disagree with that catch phrase. Who doesn't (except for Socialists and Communists) want America to be great?
I agree with Scott Adams on one thing, but I would have one qualifier to that: I believe a popular inspirational well-funded Democrat would have beaten Donald Trump in 2016 just because Trump s Trump and the campaign he ran. Hillary Clinton lost Pennsylvania and Michigan because Democrats there voted for Trump. Imagine someone with Hillary's personal and professional qualifications, but without the baggage. Who was likable and viewed generally as fairly honest at least. Barack Obama if he were eligible to run for a third term as President in 2016, I believe beats Trump going away.
What Donald Trump had going for him if that even though America finally broke away from the Great Recession and the economy was firmly strong again, you had millions of blue-collar Caucasian-American voters in the Midwest who weren't feeling the economic recovery. And if anything were worst off than they were ten years ago. Who saw immigration and perhaps even Latinos and Middle Easterners, as a threat to their way of life. Which is the base of voters that Donald Trump spoke to and claimed to represent. Even though just 6-8 years ago Donald Trump was a damn Yankee from New York City and even a Liberal Democrat (in the real sense, not stereotypical sense) who was friends with Bill and Hillary Clinton and who liked The Kennedy's.
To go back to the conman part of Donald Trump: Trump was able to sell bag of goods that had probably already expired years ago and was able to sell these people that he represented them and was going to fight for them. And ran this tribalist nationalist campaign of us against them. What they would call the real Americans, against people who hated America, as they would argue. And when you have a section of the country who believes their America is disappearing and your opponent is Hillary Clinton or someone as unpopular as she is and a Democratic Party that rather not vote at all, than to vote for either Hillary or The Donald, a presidential campaign that Trump run can be effective and even win.
