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It seems like only yesterday, but it is almost five years since Donald Trump officially announced his intention to seek the nomination to be the Republican candidate for the 2016 US presidential election.
On June 16th, 2015, Trump held a rally to make the announcement. The notion of this bullish, brash, misogynistic, reality TV star throwing his hat into the ring for the same office as that occupied by Lincoln and the Roosevelts was dismissed as delusional.
Over the following months a consensus emerged that Trump did not have the credentials or character for the position. Many formed the view that Trump lacked the political experience or the political resources to build a political machine to build a campaign on that scale.
He was said to lack the heavyweight resource to garner the political exposure necessary to build a campaign across a political marketplace as large and as sophisticated as that which Obama had rolled out five years earlier.
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The reality, however, is that Trump did not need a massive political machine. He just needed a means of garnering sufficient media attention to match that which money could buy for other candidates.
It quickly became apparent that an anti-politics vent was precisely what Trump needed to garner all the attention he needed. From his mobile phone Trump had direct control over his campaign message. He spoke an unpleasant vocabulary which the US, in an anti-politics year, was only too happy to hear.
Meanwhile the mainstream US media, feeling its own vulnerability, was more than content to give hours of coverage to everything Trump was saying because it shored up their ratings.
Political opponent
While it was not surprising that commentators and political opponent so dramatically dismissed Trump five years ago, it is very surprising to see them do so in such terms again five years later as he eyes up the 2020 presidential election.
It is as if those analysing the Trump campaign have learned nothing from their misreading of the situation the last time around, and have learned little from all that has happened since.
They assume that Trump’s moral character matters in determining whether he will be re-elected president, forgetting that it got him elected last time around and it may happen again – notwithstanding the fact that US voters have seen that character in all its maligned glory since.
The key point being missed by so many analysing Trump’s campaign launch in 2015 and now again in 2019 was that Trump is a transactional candidate. He made big promises during the last presidential election, and while what he promised is unpalatable to so many of of his opponents he has in the main delivered on those promises.
Trump as candidate had no credibility. Trump as outgoing incumbent with four years in the Oval Office comes with a track record.
Trump the candidate promised different things to different cohorts of public opinion. Trump has done nothing to disappoint his own support base.
Trump has promised tax cuts to the wealthy. Trump has delivered on that promise. The Democrats complain that he has been able to do so because of Obama’s economic legacy. Ultimately the voters don’t scare. The economy still matters stupid.
Religious right
Trump in 2016 did a deal with the religious right. He promised them right-wing judges, and he delivered them right-wing judges. At least as far as the supreme court is concerned he has delivered on this promise twice over.
Trump also promised the “dispossessed working class” that he would “protect their jobs”. Trump the candidate persuaded the working and non-working classes that unregulated immigration and excessive free trade were “stealing their jobs”.
Since he was elected president there has been much rhetoric about tighter immigration from the White House. Even though they know Trump is not doing and cannot not do all he says he wants to do about immigration reform, he has said enough and he will do enough to keep Republican voters happy.
In June 2015, when he announced his candidacy, all the talk was that Trump was not and could not be a serious contender. However, over the following year and a half Trump mounted a successful campaign which gave him real definition.
The Democratic challenger may ultimately win a turnout war against Trump, but voters now have a clearer idea of what Trump stands for than they did in 2015.
Trump already has more definition than the very cluttered Democratic field. Trump also has the advantages that come with incumbency. He also now has a good head start on his Democratic rival, whoever that may be.
The Trump candidacy cannot be dismissed by anybody as delusional this time around.