I'll make an FAQ to keep it simple.

Hillary Clinton is a jerk too.

Sure, but doesn't that only prove my point further? What happened to Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley?

If Trump wins the election, then I'll believe that jerks win

Well, here's the problem with that. He's already a candidate. He won the nomination, over 6 or 7 other more qualified people. I'm directly contending that if he were nice, he wouldn't even be a major candidate.

It's sort of like when people say "She divorced her abuser 6 years later, so in the end, jerks don't win." Well, guess what, the guy still robbed her of 6 years of her life and got away with it.

Trump would be even more successful if he were nice

No. He was in a competitive primary with 17 opponents and he stood out by being the loudest in the room. Running a negative campaign with weekly controversies has shut out actual discussion on policy. Publicity is publicity, good or bad.

As soon as he made the controversial comment that muslims should be temporarily banned from entering the country, his poll numbers shot up by 11% and he became the clear frontrunner from then on.

The crux of his campaign has been "We need toughness. The politicians are soft and they were nice, so let's bomb ISIS's family, steal their oil, burn their crops, etc.".

Trump won because of other reasons - not just his niceness

Okay, let's run down the list...

  • Political Experience - None.
  • Morals - I don't think so. Especially about his recent scandals with women, not paying/revealing taxes, and such.
  • Intelligence - He sounds very uneducated, has a 3 syllable limit on words, he appeals mostly to uneducated voters and he hasn't displayed much smarts in public.
  • Consistency - He's flip flopped on many occasions.
  • Policy? - He rarely speciifes what he wants to do as president. He just says vague ideas and then repeats his words.

He's offered very little other than blustering, attacks, criticism and insults.

Yes, he's very charismatic, but that's the point. Alphas aren't inherently jerks, but if you're alpha you can get away with jerks.

You have to actually offer something. It's not enough to just be nice.

Okay then. If nice guys (who are also competent) succeed, why didn't John Kasich win that nomination? He was a legitimate conservative. He was smarter than Trump and actually had political experience.

Rubio, Carson, Jeb, Paul and numerous others would've been better candidates if looking at merit alone.