Trump and Good Communication

Trump is an excellent communicator with asterisks which will be his ultimate downfall, as some point. But maybe he’ll run out the clock on his life and there will be no downfall, even if history goes on to villainize him even further.

He picks a good polling message and sticks to it *

I am hard to imagine a politician that sticks to his message more than Trump. The president latches on to a message and regardless of the issue always br v ings it back to his core message.

Mostly recently it’s been DEI. Every issue he discusses lately is DEI. Why did a plane crash into the Potomac? DEI. Why is it cold in February? DEI! Why is the sky blue? DEI!

Does he believe such things? Probably not but he knows the value of sticking on message, and always bringing the conversation back to messages that poll best for him. Of course, you can only force a message to a certain point when it becomes absurd and doesn’t pass the laugh test. And he runs a real risk of the laugh test being pulled on him, and becoming a joke of a personality, one even as president nobody takes serious or fears anymore.

He’s good at making the story about himself *

The President often gets headlines by virtue of the important office. But Trump more then any other politician I can think of gets in the news, by saying outrageous things that bring in viewers to the news and help to sell advertising.

In Trump’s mind, there is no bad publicity, except for being ignored. When many politicians just want to do their jobs and stay out of the news as much as possible, Trump wants to grab headlines. He actively strives to be heard, be the center of attention. There is a lot of risk in such a strategy, as news is unpredictable and narratives can be built up over time that are quite harmful.