This is why I don't want Mark Zuckerberg in any public office. I really think the guy has no moral compass because all his actions point to a very sinister "money is everything" attitude and that everything has a price.
The theory, of course, being that we build up immunities to certain kinds of advertising; there's always a race between us humans building up that immunity, and advertisers striving for novelty.
If that theory holds, advertisers have a huge advantage every time a new platform rolls out, and that advantage is slowly eroded over time, as we humans get used to the new medium.
Is it true? i don't know.
Trump talked about things people cared about in a straightforward, albeit bombastic, way. You may disagree with his approach, but others appreciated he was at least talking about things they cared about. Sure Hillary talked about those issues too, but she wasn't able to set a clear vision or ground her campaign in clearly defined and solid themes.
We can only learn from failure by accepting it and studying it, not by dismissing it as a fluke.
Quite a few things were different.
Even in discussions with people who could calmly talk about it, Trump supporters would cite obviously fake blog posts and other completely fake information that could easily be discredited with quick online searches. Even when shown that the information was fake they would not change the opinions that the fake information had created in their minds. He was talking about things that they cared about, because they had little grip on basic facts about reality. They cared about the wrong things.
Media talked about Trump being terrible all the time. He was bashed at every opportunity on many of the big networks. All the free publicity he got probably helped him, even if much of it was negative.
Once Trump won the R nomination, media began to take him seriously and do their best to discredit him and his positions.
It really depends on what problem you're trying to solve:
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/i... https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/immigrants-do-not... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/magazine/do-illegal-immigr...
If crime is your issue, illegal immigration is probably the wrong focus. If general health of the economy is the issue, probably also the wrong focus. If competition for manual labor is your issue, illegal immigration might be a cause for concern, though in order to be a good candidate/official, it's best if you've got a policy that's likely to actually help (building a wall might help the big construction companies who can land the contracts for it, but it's not likely to help anybody who isn't helping build the wall itself).
> Media talked about Trump being terrible all the time. He was bashed at every opportunity on many of the big networks.
Welcome to politics. You run for office, you're going to get criticized. Is there anything more boring at this point than a persecution complex over that fact? Particularly when (a) we're talking about Donald Trump, who isn't exactly a stranger to dishing it out himself, and (b) it comes from a side of the spectrum that also often seems to make a fuss about safe spaces and snowflakes vs robust free speech.
But even assuming Trump drew more criticism than usual -- why is it that so many Trump supporters assumed that was a matter of bias rather than a matter of professionals seeing genuinely troubling thing in Trump's character and policy? Particularly when so many of the newspaper outlets that refused to endorse him were traditionally backers of Republicans?
I don't think that this would be a productive format for discussing it in depth though.
My impression was that the man rarely said the same thing twice.
My theory was that he campaigned in the style that was popular before national media, wherein you say different things to different audiences, and that this meshed really well with facebook style targeted advertising, as he could, at least on facebook, give people the message tailored to what they wanted to hear.
My theory is that because most of my media still doesn't come from facebook, and the national media outlets I follow would report everything he said, to me? he seemed like a man who didn't have any coherent beliefs.
(This, assuming that Trump is cleared of collusion with the Russians, is what I feel was wrong with the current election. I feel that having the national media point out when a candidate makes conflicting statements is a good thing; I think it was a big step forward over what came before.)
My theory is that the average Trump voter made more than the average Clinton voter. There is some evidence for this:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mythology-of-trumps...
Exactly, an elected position would come with even more publicity, actual responsibilities and the possibility of being held accountable for his actions.
It's far more convenient and efficient for him to stay out of that system and just play it from the outside.
Having full control of the platform a large portion of the population depends on for news and communication could help him evade much of that.
The only reason he would want to go for public office, at least I could think of, is to influence government policies. But he already has an army of experienced and well-paid people doing exactly that.
Owning a bunch of hotels is a fundamentally different type of power than owning a demographic database + messaging system used to manipulate people's moods.
Being in governance gives you power that you can only glance at as a private citizen. Being a billionaire and president of the US will make you far more powerful than merely being a billionaire.
But AFAIK he is not interested in politics at all.