Giving Trump His Due
You could have locked a 100 political consultants in a room and told them not to leave until they had a perfect response to the San Bernardino terror attack, and they never would have emerged proposing to ban all Muslim travel to the U.S. When Trump said it, the world collapsed around his head. Everyone denounced him.
No one agreed with Trump — except Republican voters. According to exit polls, it was his strongest issue. In New Hampshire, 65 percent supported the ban, in South Carolina, 74 percent supported it, in New York, 68 percent. Trump won a solid plurality of those voters in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and an astonishing 72 percent of them in New York.
.. The idea of a ban on Muslims is completely unreasonable and, if you were to going to try to implement it, impractical (ticket agents in Europe would have to try to discern the religion of passengers flying to the U.S.). Trump’s insight was that it didn’t matter. The emotional punch of the ban, and the way it differentiated him from the other candidates, was the important thing. In this case, as in so many others, having a serious, responsible policy staff or practiced political consultants would only have hampered his cause.
.. Trump’s achievement is difficult to fathom. With no pollsters, no speechwriters, no fundraising staff, little campaign organization, few TV advertisements, no debate prep and a paper-thin knowledge of public affairs, he has won a major-party presidential nomination. This is a 100-year event.
Trump did it by pounding a simple, emotive message over and over again in big rallies and media appearances.
.. If Trump proved an exceptionally skilled politician in his inimitable way, he was also fortunate. For the longest time, there wasn’t any organized effort against him. He won three out of the first four contests while his rivals squabbled among themselves. The establishment initially bet on Jeb Bush, and then, tapped out financially and psychologically, did nothing to rally around Cruz, whom many insiders fear and hate more than Trump.
.. It’s a cliché to say that Trump has changed all the rules. That isn’t strictly true because what he has done isn’t easily replicable. It’s impossible to imagine anyone else dominating the media like Trump (even Vladimir Putin, who directly controls the Russian media, must be envious) or being so adept at waving off his own contradictory statements or bull-dozing through his own ignorance.