Trump: The need for a greater rhetorical emotional hit
But a problem arose. Once a level of outrageous rhetoric was achieved, it no longer provided the ‘hit’ that the people or the media wanted. Someone had to come along and up the ante to kick-start the next round of howling anger. You got ‘death panels’, you got ‘Obama’s a Muslim’, you got ‘Mexicans are rapists’ – it just has to keep escalating.
And Trump saw this clearly, so he came out and one-upped everybody. And now he’s on round two, and he knows instinctively he needs to one-up himself.