re: #89 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Trump was a collective middle finger raised at Washington and its political elites.

DT sold himself as the anti-politician, which made him immune to gaffes that would have wrecked the campaigns or even the career of any other professional politician.

No, again, I don’t think that’s quite true. His image is anti-politics, yes, but like any image, it is a construct of media.

He wasn’t and isn’t immune to gaffes or negative press. His persona and image construct is just as vulnerable as anyone else’s. The US media chose, whether through incompetence or malice, to immunise his image from his scandals. Their coverage of it was comparatively sparse and short-lived, while they chose, again, to relentlessly hammer away at Clinton’s supposed scandals, creating a narrative of a horse race where none deserved to be, for the purpose of keeping views and clicks.

The American public is easily led. Trump supporters, particularly so. The US media as a whole is an institution with almost limitless power in this nation, the world’s most powerful nation. They have fallen victim to that most American of ideals, however - the idea that a thing’s popularity directly correlates with worth, value, and morality. So they use this limitless power to construct narratives to increase and maintain their own popularity. And if that means elevating the worst person in the world to the highest office in the world, so be it.