How did Donald Trump win the 2016 Presidential Election?

In no particular order, Trump won by:

- Conning vulnerable, gullible people into thinking he was on their side.

- Exploiting a U.S. consumer mentality that allows itself to be “sold” a product because of the exaggerations and overconfidence of the salesperson instead of actual facts.

- Targeting an ideological class that is emotionally invested in tribal, lockstep groupthink, and has proven itself highly susceptible to manipulations that amplify fear, and capitalize on ignorance.

- Repackaging the inflammatory rhetoric of conservative talk shows of the past decades - almost verbatim - while branding it as his own “straight talk.”

- Exploding the complacent overreach of a progressive-minded media which celebrated rapid social change, even as those changes alarmed and angered roughly half of the U.S. electorate.

- Appealing to nostalgia around the glory days of white male privilege, then molding it into nationalistic sentiments.

- Lying with conviction, and repeating those lies so often that folks who either had low IQs, or were desperately rationalizing, began to accept them as true.

- Boasting about grabbing women’s pussies without their permission.

- Having an opponent lacking enough in charisma and inspirational vision that nearly half of the registered voters in her party stayed home.

- Unabashedly amplifying unprecedented, underhanded, and in some cases illegal tactics of third parties that were very likely coordinated with his campaign (Russian hackers, FBI disclosures, conspiracy-mongering, etc.)

- Demonizing everyone in opposition, thereby creating the illusion of independence and strength.

- Being a gifted extemporaneous stump speaker.

- Having a broadly recognizable celebrity brand (in the U.S. we say our celebrities are the closest thing we have to royalty).

- Prioritizing winning at all costs.

- Being at the right place, at the right time in history.

My 2 cents.

(From Quora question: https://www.quora.com/How-did-Donald-Trump-win-the-2016-Presidential-Election)

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