Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Looks like it will be Trump!



I’m not a “Political Pundit” but was keenly following the US Presidential elections 2016, primarily to know more about the US political system. Another reason was to hear Donald Trump’s views and to understand his techniques to negotiate and debate.

Donald Trump started as 1 of the 17 biggies in the Republican Party, many of them with sound political backing and corporate funding unlike him. 

#1 - Trump starts to ensure he is noticed and gets attention. Hence he starts with making outlandish and polarizing statements against

  • Immigrants
  • ISIS and the families of the terrorist (Bombing ISIS and going after the families of the terrorist)
  • Policies of countries like China and India
  • Muslims
  • Women (in certain cases)
  • Mexicans  

#2 - Media Coverage with "Trump Statements”. In addition to #1 his suggestions to build a wall on the Mexican border and not allowing Mexican’s to send money back home, his polarizing statements about Muslims, women and multiple other issues ensured the media covers him well. The trick was successful and got free media coverage worth $2Bn (re: NY Times), this was the maximum amongst all the contenders.

#3 - Starts picking upon his opponents, often repeats his quotes during the debates and on & off the stage too. He started with taking on the strongest and then picking up the next best. Branding like Weak or low energy Jeb, lying Ted, little Marco, Crooked Hillary or heartless Hillary.

#4 - Shifting gears and started talking about too much weaponry and destruction around the world that’s opposite to the previous suggestions to not have gun free zone in schools and bombing the hell out of ISIS

#5 - He is not trying to be politically correct hence can afford be outrageous. Many voters may like this trait of his!

#6 - He is not trying to please everyone

#7 - He is fearless and understands he has nothing to loose. In an interview to CNBC he mentioned if he doesn't win the elections he is going to take a "very, very nice long vacation"

To sum-up Trumps style was simple
1.     Get Attention
2.     Be Flexible
3.     Win one at a time
4.     Remove threats one at a time
5.     Define the terms of the engagement i.e. highlighting or discussing things which were not even part of the mainframe discussion like the “Trump Wall”, anti-establishment etc. For e.g. having an "outsider" now in White House was one of the solutions he proposed. Basically Trump made being an insider a stigma and Clinton fell for it. Now this was so effective that even Hillary Clinton called herself an outsider instead of being the first lady for 8 years and then the secretary of the state now for 4 years. Hillary’s website also has Trump's name “Love Trump Haters” but for Donald every publicity is a good publicity

The recent developments will increase the chances of Donald Trump becoming the next US President
- Terror attacks in multiple places across US including the recent ones in NY, NJ and Minnesota
- Speculations about Hillary's health
- Clinton's email server issues and 
- Wikileaks publishing alleged emails from Clinton

Lately elections across the globe aren’t fought on policies and proposals but personalities and the same thing is happening in the US too (Trump vs Clinton).

Best wishes to everyone, please register yourself and exercise your voting rights!!