Now I’ve been travelin’ all around,
I heard trouble’s come to your town.
Well, I’ve got a little somethin,
Guaranteed to ease your mind.
It’s called Snake Oil, y’all,
It’s been around for a long, long time.
Steve Earle penned those lines over 30 years ago about politicians who ride into town and promise the moon. He could have written them yesterday.
Snake oil is powerful. It’s the easy answer to unsolvable problems. No wonder politicians have been selling the stuff for generations.
Eight years ago, I caught some flack from folks for predicting Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination and, probably, become president. Didn’t I know the guy was a fraud?
Almost a decade later, Trump has proven to be more than a fraud. He has been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation. He is the only U.S. president to have been impeached twice. He was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
And none of it matters.
It drives Trump’s opponents, both Democrat and Republican, crazy. The guy is arrested and his mug shot is proudly displayed on t-shirts. He gets hauled into court and his fundraising goes up. He lies and people listen. The old political order has no idea how to deal with him.
There is no mystery to the Trump phenomenon. From his beginnings as the scion of a New York development family, Trump has been building a brand.
From a huge TRUMP-emblazoned airplane to dozens of gold-tinted TRUMP buildings, he carefully constructed a brand with clear definitions that became the basis of his reality TV show. The man knows his brand.
The Trump brand stands for unremorseful success, tenacity, American exceptionality, strength and, above all else, winning.
Trump is unconcerned about accusations that do not attack these core brand strengths.
Call him a liar and he’ll shrug. Say he cheated and he’ll just smile. But don’t ever insinuate he is a loser or all hell will (actually, has) break out.
Those who shout, ad nauseum, that Trump is a fraud just don’t get it. Of course he is. He exaggerates and fabricates with the best of the Snake Oil vendors. Hype is just a tool of the trade.
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But the Trump brand is both real and powerful. People who accuse him of being unhinged and undisciplined are comparing Trump with traditional politicians and he isn’t one. He is extraordinarily disciplined and somewhat masterful in maintaining and building his brand.
Fighting Trump is pointless. Attacking the Trump brand is the path to beating him in the political arena. But it isn’t easy.
Trump has built his brand over decades. He may have a casual relationship with facts, but he has a firm grip on the essential characteristics many American voters value. He never backs up, never concedes and never apologizes.
That may make him an arrogant blowhard in some eyes, but many voters prefer his tenacity to the mushy, reasonable politicians who have whatever convictions their pollsters agreed to this morning and who are perpetually apologizing to the perpetually offended. Woke Snake Oil just doesn’t sell anymore.
George Bernard Shaw wrote: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Our American cousins are about to elect an unreasonable man as their president. They’ve had all the reasonable they can stand.