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Comment by DIARRHEA_xd | Hacker News Reader

The notable exception to this, of course, is Trump's primary AND general elections.

Trump spent hundreds of millions of dollars officially, outside groups that don't need to report all of their spending (like the NRA) spent further hundreds of millions, and he had hundreds of millions worth of "earned media" due to the circus-like nature of the campaign.

Because he spent marginally less than Ted Cruz in the primary and less than Hillary in the general doesn't give lie to the premise at all. His 2020 reelection campaign spent ~$1 billion when including independent expenditures!

Trump is still proof an outsider can win. He needed money but someone outside the political class still came in and won despite his parties best efforts against it (at the beginning when he was just a primary candidate they made their bed with his now).

“An outsider”? Trump is a billionaire who has been directly involved in politics for decades.

If anything doesn't he represent a more direct "taking of the reins" by the lobbyist/corpo class? Even most lifer politicians themselves are more "outsiders" than he is/was.

It's weird that people believe he is a political outsider. I've never heard a holistic/logical argument showing he is somehow more divested or decoupled from the implicit oligarchy class that ultimately is deciding legislation/law/executive orders these days.

I guess it's because he's bounced around parties and people are really firmly sold on the republican/democrat binary, seems superficial to me but I'd be willing to hear any cogent argument made.

"outsider" trump couldn't be outside himself... if he ever found the will to try he would just reflected back at himself thanks to his Lovecraftian narcissism.

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