8 - Trump’s Novelty

Summary

Well after it ended, the 2016 presidential campaign remained enigmatic. What parallel universe could explain how Donald John Trump became the nation’s forty-fifth chief executive? How could an experienced, supremely capable woman like Hillary Rodham Clinton be defeated? The punditocracy sputtered for a while after the final votes were tabulated but its explanations soon poured forth: The Daily Wire’s Aaron Bandler offered “Seven Reasons Trump Won,” only to be outdone by CNN’s Gregory Krieg’s “Twenty-Four Theories” for the election’s outcome. The BBC’s Anthony Zurcher proved a piker, only able to adduce “Five Reasons Donald Trump Won” and was further embarrassed by Howard Gold’s “Five Huge Reasons Donald Trump Won.”¹ Still, Zurcher won the rhetorical war by declaring that Trump “had built a throne of skulls out of his Republican primary opponents.”²