Without a doubt, Donald Trump
was the biggest political story of 2015. No one, anywhere, believed Trump would
be the frontrunner in national polls from August to December. If anyone tells
you they expected the Trump phenomenon, ask them to make a New Year’s resolution
to stop telling lies.
The only ones really paying any attention to the presidential primary in
mid-June when Trump held his kickoff announcement at Trump Tower were political
insiders and junkies, and most of them laughed off the real estate magnate’s
candidacy as a joke. But cable TV news channels — Fox News, MSNBC and CNN in
particular — were the biggest entities with something to gain from Trump’s entry
into the race, and they put him on the air and talked about him far more than
any other candidate in the race. As the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple put it,
“Because ratings.” It’s a dynamic that has persisted since Trump entered the
race. And so Trump, already famous for being famous, went from punch line to
legitimate candidate largely because of cable TV’s insatiable appetite for
profit. Nobody thought it would last. It was all a fun summer fling.
But Trump’s poll numbers rose to 6 percent in two weeks, and by mid-July he was
at 10 percent, trailing only Jeb Bush. By the third week of July he had passed
Bush. He has led in the national polls — which are testing name recognition more
than anything — since then.
As cable TV exposure begat rising poll numbers and support from survey
respondents who might not have known anyone else was even running for president,
the nation began to consider Trump an actual presidential candidate. And Trump’s
rhetoric began to resonate with the non-college-educated white working class,
channeling their anger at feeling left behind economically and culturally.
Illegal immigration was his first and primary bogeyman. Trump’s promise to build
a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico and make the Mexican government pay for it
only demonstrated the ludicrousness of his candidacy to elites. But to the
blue-collar worker struggling to pay the bills, it was at least something to
make up for the rising cost of goods and services while paychecks stayed flat,
or for lost jobs, or for the fact that life seemed increasingly overwhelming
and, to some, maybe even meaningless.
The terrorist attacks in Paris, followed by the mass shooting in San Bernardino,
Calif., elevated concerns about personal safety and national security to the
front of many voters’ minds in November. Trump’s bellicose manner — a dangerous
carelessness to veteran political watchers — won over more casual observers.
When Trump sought to address concerns about terrorists coming to the United
States, he did not propose a ban on or a delay in immigration from certain
countries or parts of the world. He said the U.S. — a nation founded on the
principle of freedom of religion — should ban new entries from an entire faith
group. And his national numbers went up, again.
The questions that arise from Trump’s candidacy are many. First among them is
whether he can actually win contests when the voting starts in February, and how
he’ll respond to those he loses. Then there is the question of whether the
Republican Party will survive if he does, somehow, become the nominee — and what
will come out of a fracturing that is likely in such a scenario.