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Donald Trump Bump Is About Celebrity, Not Policies, Lifting His Star In Early Polls

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This article is more than 8 years old.

With a gaggle of candidates scrambling for the GOP nomination slot, all publicity is good publicity. And no one in the White House 2016 hunt embodies implementing the use of celebrity to propel above the Republican parapet more than Donald Trump. Fame is his friend. Bullying forward is his M.O. That’s what the polls are reflecting, anyway. In the latest Fox News Poll, Trump has leapt to the top of the GOP nomination pack with 18% of the pie, compared to Scott Walker’s 15% and Jeb Bush’s 14%. (Statistically, that still amounts to a near dead heat.)

Trump is counting on exposure and sheer sound-bite grit. (A billionaire mogul calling out a Bush for cronyism and dubbing John McCain a dummy falls under the latter). The fact that he has 7 million social media (including 3.42 million Twitter ) followers with whom he interacts is prominently displayed on his official campaign website. That’s about 6.7 million more Twitter followers than fellow GOP challenger, Jeb Bush, but shy of the 3.88 million followers of Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Trump’s ad slogan, not uncommon to political outsiders vying for an inside seat at the political table, because it plays well, is “Make America Great Again.”

In the latest USA Today national polls, Trump trails Hillary by 17 percentage points, whereas Jeb trails her by 4 percentage points. When push comes to shove, the GOP would want to promote the candidate with the best chance to win the White House. In general, Trump’s views on the issues equate him to a hard-core conservative, compared to Jeb, a populist-leaning conservative. The difference is semantics.

Trump’s political-media-made star rises every time he says something, anything controversial, as exemplified by his “criminals and rapists” characterization of certain Mexican illegals. Like Sarah Palin (whose fast-rising celebrity status catapulted her into American consciousness for good or bad, but who, unlike Trump, actually governed a state), Trump’s poll figures are predicated on conflict.

A large swath of the American population idolizes celebrity and fame, but is too busy making ends meet (with about 15% living below the poverty line and 62% effectively living paycheck to paycheck) to devote energy to political combat considerations this early in the cycle, providing impetus for the Trump Bump.

The story of Trump’s traversal through the open fields of endless American opportunity resonates even amongst those that consider him an egotistical, blow-hard. His website touts, “Donald J. Trump is the definition of the American success story.” Yet, even that narrative has been massaged for public consumption, in the same way that reality TV is really another version of scripted TV packaged to appear spontaneous.

Trump didn’t quite go from rags to riches. His father, Fred Trump, whose own father first emigrated to the United States in 1885, was born in Queens, New York in 1905. A successful real estate developer in his own right, he converted a low and affordable income-housing constellation into a $300 million fortune. In other words, Donald had some formidable family help in launching his own empire. (He also filed for corporate bankruptcy four different times between 1991 and 2009.)

In early moments of elections, particularly in these days of constant media material bombardment, permeating the national discourse and capitalizing on fame is critical. That’s the reason behind what will be a multi-billion dollar 18-month long campaign season – get to know your favorite humble candidate through the expensive messaging apparatus of prime-time TV ads. It doesn’t mean that these early indications of polling success in the public awareness stakes, will lead to Trump capturing the GOP nomination or the presidency, however.

Though as legendary rock star, Gene Simmons told Fox Business After the Bell Host, Melissa Francis yesterday, “he’s in it to win it”, Trump’s persona may turn out to be more of a liability than an asset. There is such a thing as over-exposure.

As William Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.” That also means we get to choose which show we want to watch. We get to turn the channel. Stream something else.

Trump has leveraged his reality TV presence, business building narrative and media contacts to keep him in the public eye. That comes with a price: the more people that see him talk against whole segments of the population or fail to address what he can do for them, the less they will find him to be their representative.

That’s what a nervous Jeb Bush is praying will happen on the GOP side. On the Democrat side, Hillary Clinton is just hoping she can use Trump’s fame to somehow distinguish herself as different from the brazen billionaire, given the tar of her own Wall Street and elite connections. Rather than wanting to be lumped with Trump and Bush into the upper-1% class, she keeps stressing her desire to champion the Middle Class. (Three of the biggest Wall Street banks being in her top five career campaign contributors and Clinton Foundation donors, aside.) Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is going about his campaign, focusing on issues, and ignoring the spectacle.

When Narcissus gazed upon his own reflection in a pool of water, he fell so in love with it that he was unable to leave it. So he drowned. Trump’s public personage is based on a central degree of narcissism that infuses his brand and empire decisions. Public office doesn’t offer the same sort of space for self-adoration, but Trump still has room to drown in his own image before any primary takes place.

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