There is no one reason that can explain President Donald J. Trump's controversial, but enduring appeal; however, the combination of charisma and a powerful message (i.e. “Make America Great Again”) were some of the greatest contributors to the success of his 2016 Presidential campaign. Donald Trump’s bold and non-politically correct approach to politics, along with his charismatic personality appealed to many Americans, and his campaign slogan of “Make America Great Again,” made many American’s feel nostalgic, because it allowed them to attach their own individual perception of when they felt America was at its greatest.
A Powerful Message
A good campaign slogan is an important factor to consider when running for President. According to the Ottawa Citizen’s, Jonathan Rose, a Queen’s University political scientist specializing in political communications, “Slogans make the messiness and the disorder of the campaign into something that is coherent and memorable.” A slogan should be clever, concise, and a memorable way to show who someone is and what they stand for. An exceptional slogan is wise, positive, and can even be prophetic, which engages the people, all of which can be found in Trumps slogan “Make America Great Again”.
When someone looks at past and present leaders, they can see great examples of slogans that reflect a powerful message. The 32nd President of the United States (U.S.), Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (the only president to be elected into office four times) pledge of a "new deal" for the American people was able to capture the tremendous desire for change and fairness after the 1929 stock market crash and the great depression that followed. The 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy's "Let's get America moving again" was in concern not only for the slowed pace of the American economy, but the need to confront the threat of the USSR, and replace our old and tired leaders.
Like President Trump, the 40th and 42nd U.S. Presidents, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, also vowed to “Make America Great Again”; however, Clinton’s actual campaign slogan was “Putting People First.” Then there’s the 44th President, Barack Obama, President Trump’s immediate predecessor who used powerful single word slogans such as, “Change” in 2008, and “Hope” in 2012. President Trump’s slogan, along with the aforementioned, were all reflective of their respective state of affairs in the United States, which resonated with the public because they held a powerful message that inspired hope for something better.
Publicity
When people are predictable they’re often perceived as boring because most of the time nothing surprising happens with them, and people lose interest and stop paying attention? In order to change the mind of someone, something big needs to happen to grab their attention, and what better way to do so than doing something unexpected and/or outrageous. For President Trump, any press is good press, which means to him there’s no such thing as bad press; therefore, unexpected and outrageous are part of his charismatic persona that many people seem to flock to.
President Trump’s charisma is a key reason for why he has been so effective in capturing the focus of Millions in the United States and even Billions worldwide. President Trump is always changing. Just when people think they’ve begun to understand him (i.e. what he might say or do), he often does something to prove their assumption wrong. During the election, whenever the media attention would start to deviate from Donald Trump, some sort of a new controversy would suddenly arise, (e.g. like with his plan for a temporary travel ban from countries that were predominantly Muslim, dubbed the “Muslim Ban”), which directed the media right back onto himself. Whether intentional or not, President Trump’s controversies essentially drowned out his competition during the election, detracting all the attention from his more experienced political opponents.
Many of American’s prefer things that they’re familiar with, more than the things they aren’t. This is known as the “mere exposure effect,” for example: “Even if he has never met either of them, a person is more likely to feel an affinity with someone he passes on his street occasionally than for a complete stranger”. Therefore, since most of the U.S. is constantly bombarded with President Trump’s ever-present media presence, it’s only natural that many American’s began to favor him over the other candidates as time went on.
Likeability Factor
There were many political pundits who spoke about trump’s “favorability problem”, a measure of how much someone is liked; however, President Trump was a benefactor to the theoretical question: “Which candidate would you rather have a beer with?” A question that President George W. Bush (43rd U.S. President) was the primary beneficiary of. President Bush had a likeable personality, which represented a change from his father, George H.W. Bush, the 41st President, who enjoyed an approval rating of 89 percent at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991; although, he carried only 37 percent of the popular vote a year later against Bill Clinton.
Political pundits, both liberal and conservative, have made comparisons between Trump and Reagan, as they do have very similar surface traits. They both got into politics having spent time in the world of entertainment (i.e. Reagan a movie star and Trump a TV personality). They both started as Democrats before running as conservative Republicans. Reagan was the oldest president to ever be elected, until Trump. And according to an article from NBC News “Ronald Reagan repeatedly promised to “make America great again” during his 1980 presidential campaign. He, too, used it as slogan on campaign merchandise.”
I want to talk about how people were drawn to Trump because of his somewhat more relatable personality, rather than Hillary’s more up tight and distant demeanor (i.e. people would rather sit and have a beer with Trump than Hillary).
Comprehension
Many people think that an impressive vocabulary and fancy sentences are the best way to convince someone of their point of view. This is a philosophy that is extremely common, if not the standard in colleges across America. This is also the reason why so many college papers are chock-full of 15 word sentences using words such as “obfuscation”, “indubitably”, and “plethora”. The rationale is: That if I’m able to appear more intelligent through my vocabulary and grammar, the more likely people will be to believe what I say. Therefore, best way to appear intelligent is to use stupendously intimidating words in sometimes overly-complex sentences.
Unfortunately, this approach doesn’t work, at least according to a study from Princeton University by Daniel Oppenheimer, which he cunningly titled “Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly”. The studies abstract states: “Most texts on writing style encourage authors to avoid overly-complex words. However, a majority of undergraduates admit to deliberately increasing the complexity of their vocabulary so as to give the impression of intelligence. This paper explores the extent to which this strategy is effective. Experiments 1–3 manipulate complexity of texts and find a negative relationship between complexity and judged intelligence. This relationship held regardless of the quality of the original essay, and irrespective of the participants’ prior expectations of essay quality.”
In layman’s terms: The use of overly-complex words actually makes one come across as less intelligent.
It’s highly doubtful that President Trump has ever read this particular paper, but he certainly makes sure to keep his speeches as simple and understandable as humanly possible. Nina Burleigh, of Newsweek, says that President Trumps first 30,000 words were analyzed and ranked on the Flesch-Kincaid grade level scale, as well as more than two dozen other common tests, which analyze the English-language difficulty levels. President Trump was ranked at about a mid-fourth grade level, “the worst since Harry Truman, who spoke at nearly a sixth-grade level.”