Tl;dr Donald Trump’s campaign strategy doesn’t make sense to many people until you look at it from a 48 Laws of Power perspective. When considered that way, it’s not surprising that it works.
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Whether or not you like Trump, he is an excellent strategist, and in this post series, I’ll demonstrate why and use the 48 Laws of Power as a lens. Each post will look at one or two Laws. Further, Trump has an uncanny ability to think big-picture, and is highly adaptable to new circumstances. Anyone who doubts this should ask themselves what other 70 year old has mastered Twitter as a public relations tool. Most 70 year olds are afraid of online banking. So, on to the Laws! I’ll start with an obvious one.
Law 6: Court attention at all costs
-Everything is judged by its appearance; what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost.
Trump has a talent for sucking all the air out of a room. Whether it’s his company’s real estate branding, which was fairly unique when he came up with it, his own personal brand, or his style of campaigning, he has mastered keeping the eyeballs on him at all cost. It seems counterintuitive – nobody likes a braggart - and does have its risks. But you have to remember, politics is a market and politicians are products. What the market wants today is not necessarily what it wanted yesterday. At this point, Republicans want an aggressive advocate. Trump’s aggressive nature works for him in this current climate.
Also, you can argue that keeping all eyes on him also has another important benefit: Other candidates find themselves being defined by, and constantly reacting to something Trump said. You see this with the labels he sticks on people: Jeb is “low energy” (code word for Pussy), etc. This also ties in with the OODA loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act). In essence, Trump gets inside other candidates’ OODA loops, keeping them in a state of constant reaction and thus inside his frame. And he is thus always in the public’s eye in a state of dominance. Example: At one point, Jeb Bush angrily protested, “You can’t bully your way into the Presidency, Donald!”
This was a disastrous move on Jeb’s part because to bully someone is to dominate him, and thus by Jeb’s own admission, Trump was dominating his opponents! This normally would not be a disaster, but the Republican electorate is tired of being beaten down by liberals in the media and the Obama Administration, and tired of not having a voice on issues such as immigration. Bush looked like a kid trying to tell on his bully, and more importantly, looked like a pussy! Just what Trump says he is. This cements him as being one of the Republicans who failed, who doesn’t have the stuff to fight Obama and Hillary. He is still running, but nobody would say he’s in the race. The identity label attached to him is fatal.
Law 15: Crush your enemy totally
-...a feared enemy must be crushed completely…If one ember is left alight, no matter how dimly it smolders, a fire will eventually break out.
Trump never seems to attack anybody unless they attack him, and they are powerful enough to be a threat, at which point he relentlessly attacks until they’re no longer a conceivable threat. We’ve seen this with Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, and most recently, Ted Cruz. We see a lesser version of this tactic used on media figures like Megyn Kelly. Jeb was the first victim, then as Carly rose and went after him, he portrayed her as annoying and shrill, and now Ted Cruz is feeling the heat over his potential ineligibility. As Scott Adams says, this was framed as a risk, rather than a certainty, because while the probability might not be all that high, we can all agree it’s a possibility and thus a risk.
This removes them as threats and serves a secondary and perhaps more important function – threat deterrence. If a guy steps to you and you beat his ass, most guys will stop trying to bully you. If you establish that as a definite pattern, the message is clear: “Attacking me is risky – it’s just not worth it.” Also, note that he never attacks anybody who hasn’t attacked first, which prevents him being seen as mean-spirited. This is even true for Rosie O’Donnell, she attacked first. I’m not saying that he’s an angel, I’m saying his reputation is to treat you well when you work with him, punish you when you don’t, and destroy you when you attack.
Lessons Learned
-Context is everything. Trump’s shtick wouldn’t have worked 8 or 16 years ago, but this is a different climate.
-It’s better to be infamous than unknown.
-TRP examples of how to treat women are actually universally applicable. Treat people well when they give you what you want, and punish them if they don’t. If they attack you, maneuver until they're not in a position to do it again. This is a universally alpha trait.
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