Throughout the Republican primary season this past year, Donald Trump enjoyed near rock star status after being left largely alone by the mainstream media. Their coordinated goal was to tolerate the positive media attention given to Trump so that he could succeed in winning the Republican Party nomination. According to this logic, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio would have been much more formidable candidates for Clinton to overcome, so let Trump win. Endless stories branded Trump as the voice of the angry silent majority tired of big government and political correctness and, most of all, tired of Obama and the Democratic Party.
All this ended abruptly the day Trump clinched the Republican nomination. It's as if the dams burst, filling the airwaves, newspapers, blogs, websites, social media, and news shows on all the TV stations (controlled by the Democrat-oriented media) with vile, irrational hatred of Donald Trump the candidate. All you could hear was a systematic process of demonization, an unabashed, uncalled for fanning of flames of hatred for Trump.
What had Donald Trump done that can explain this lynch mob mentality? What was it that ushered in this wild, impassioned "kill the beast" atmosphere? How can one explain or even comprehend that politicians and citizens who normally exhibit sensitivity and civility in the public discourse becoming so brazen in stating lies, baseless accusations, and general nastiness as they bare their teeth in a frenzy of violent self-righteousness?
So begins the re-branding of Donald Trump, with the mainstream media running an intense, coordinated media campaign turning the huge tide of public support Trump had garnered against him and depriving him of the unbiased media exposure he needs to convince the American people to vote for Trump on Election Day.
Trump has been transformed into the naysayer. The heretic. Roaming the countryside much like Johnny Appleseed, from town to town, and from state to state, going against the grain by repeating fearlessly that Obama and the Democratic Party are running America into the ground. Trump explained, for those willing to listen and to packed audiences, his tremendously popular messages of law and order, immigration enforcement, border security, and pro-growth economic policies. Trump repeated again and again that the threat of Islamic terror is real. Despite Obama's efforts to deny and refuse to confront Islamic terror; Fort Hood, San Bernardino, Orlando, and Dallas have all proven that Trump is right and that the Democratic Party, led by Hillary Clinton, is sweeping under the rug what every American knows is true about the clear and present danger Islamic terror is for Americans.
In the meantime – as crowds pour into Trump rallies throughout the country, waiting in long lines for a chance to be part of the "shake-up" Americans are hoping and praying for, to hear and cheer for Trump. Hillary Clinton is forced to make a rare appearance before unquestioning Hispanic and black news reporters who at the end of the staged press conference give her an unprofessional round of applause. It was at this event that she claimed that she had "short-circuited" in response to the FBI report that questioned the truthfulness of her claims. Clinton will continue to keep herself at a safe distance and appear before small, sympathetic audiences and interviewers, while Donald Trump will continue to hold rallies with tens of thousands who want the wall, who want illegal immigration stopped, who want to keep hostile Muslims far from America, and who want America to be great again.
So as the press manufactures one phony article after another re-branding Donald Trump as an unelectable candidate, it is essential that we be aware that what we are observing is the collapse of the old media and the rise of the new social media. Donald Trump has harnessed social media to spread his agenda and policies. Trump is attacked by the old media for his Twitter observations, yet by the time the old media attacks him, Trump has moved on to tweet another thought-provoking response for the public to ponder and to which the old media must respond. In so doing, Trump has kept the old and democratically controlled media off balance, focusing on him and his message. Donald Trump tweets away effortlessly, making the lies and the rebranding efforts of the old media meaningless.
In so doing, not only has Trump become the news, but he creates a focus on Trump the candidate. Donald Trump dominates social media, reaching out directly to the American public avoiding the minefields of the biased and largely unsupportive old media, leaving them in the dust. As a result, the old media is perceived as a Democratic-slanted propaganda machine unable to free itself from the shackles of political correctness and presenting viewpoints that are the antithesis of what Americans actually believe in. This past year, major media events culminating in reports on Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, Dallas, and San Francisco have all contributed to mainstream media losing the trust and truthfulness associated with them in the past. They, the mainstream old media outlets, are even willing to sacrifice their "Temple of Truth" because they are acutely aware that if Trump can somehow penetrate the massive Democratic-inspired propaganda erected against his campaign, the election is over, and Donald Trump will be president.
The good news is that on Election Day, the American people have to leave their homes and get in line to vote. In most elections, it's hard to get even 50% to turn out to vote. And therein lies the Trump advantage in November – who is going to have the most motivated, most inspired voters show up to vote? You know the answer to this question. Who's the candidate with the most committed supporters? Whose election-day activists are going to be up at 5 AM on Election Day, volunteering all day long, all the way until the last polling place has closed, making sure every Tom, Dick, and Harry and Shirley has cast his or her ballot? That's right. That's why the rebranding of Donald Trump will fail, and he will go on and win the election on November 8.
