I’ve been thinking more about this
I remember when Trump picked Vance to be his VP. Liberals and liberal media scoffed at this, saying he was a goober, only leans more into MAGA and wouldn’t help Trump diversify his voter base to get to 270.
What they all missed, and even myself to some degree, was Trump’s team already knew their message and tactic — America first, fighting against political* and globalist* elites, and speaking to an angry, mobilized working and middle class.
Their genius quite honestly is that they weren’t trying to get every American to vote for them. They knew a lot of the country hates them. They were shooting for 60%.
Democrats water down the message soooo much tryin to put out generic bullshit to reach every single American. Instead, a campaign that shoots for energizing a strong and might base and pursuing hard 60% of the vote, while the other 40% may hate them, is a winning strategy.
Bernie has been largely calling progressives to get back to this strategy - let’s get 60% fucking amped and fired up, and 40% (elites, haters, whoever) may hate us but you know what, that 60% is gonna show up ready to go and win.
It’s A strategy, and could be the wrong one. But for Trump, it was a winning strategy, even in the face of the most hostile media and global establishment pushback ever.
Trump has a history of surrounding himself with the worst people. But yes, picking Vance was smart. Vance is from the rust belt, solidifies Trump’s alliance with the Paypal Mafia, and is a logical successor to the MAGA movement. Above all, he is assassination insurance. His economic populism, like Tucker’s, is dumb and misguided, but is also a
vote-getter.
It's simpler than that. People hate being poor, and most of the country recognized one candidate was contributing to their poverty VS their wealth.
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