Donald Trump is easily the most astonishing and controversial candidate in the history of modern American politics. The first businessman ever to win the nomination of a major party in the U.S., and the first non-politician to do so in 64 years (General Eisenhower did it in 1952), he is either profoundly loved or resented by many. Thanks to his own unconventional style, theatrics, bravados, bad choice of words – a tremendous faux pas in our politically correct country –  and the incessant attacks from the media and the political Establishment, he is often perceived as a racist, bigot, narcissist and even a dangerous man.

I cannot defend all his scandalous statements, but if you judge him based on his actions, as I explained in a previous blog, it is obvious that he is not a racist or a bigot. To summarize that blog post:

A. Building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border or deporting illegal immigrants is NOT a racist act. We already have a wall – a very stupid, ineffective wall – and even Obama has deported more than 2 million illegal immigrants.

B. Banning immigration of Muslim refugees is not racist since it is impossible to screen tens or hundreds of thousands of people – just ask Europe. There are also huge cultural/social problems that arise from allowing ultra-conservative Muslims in great numbers, as discussed in my blog post “Rapefugees versus Refugees – A Rational Discussion.” Trump proposes building a “safe zone” close to Syria and other regions and helping the refugees resettle there until the war is over and then return them back to their countries.

C. The charges of racism against blacks is simply preposterous. Black American leaders and celebrities had a great relationship with Trump until a few months ago. What changed the public opinion were 1) media propaganda and 2) a handful of Trump rally fights orchestrated by George Soros. The truth about Trump is very different. At the end of this article is a video of a heartfelt testimony from an African American female employee of Trump organization.

All that said, in general, people rightfully expect their leaders to be gracious, polite and decent. However, these are some mitigating factors for Trump’s occasional crude language and brash behavior:

1. Waging a lonely war: For the Establishment candidates, it is very easy to be polite and politically correct since they let other people do the dirty fight for them. For the Democratic candidates, influential outlets such as Comedy Central, The Daily Show and the entire mainstream media have been the attack dogs that viciously tear down Trump, who has been the Republican front-runner from the very first day he announced his candidacy in June 2015. You see, Clinton never has to act “unpresidential,” because the media will call Trump an orange-faced buffoon, an orangutan, a clown, a Hitler, a dick, a pig and much more. Respectable mainstream media such as Huffington Post will even pretend that rap songs about killing Trump are simply “protest songs.” On the Republican side, people like Ted Cruz were funded by Super PACs who spent untold amount on negative ads against Trump. Some of them were downright dirty, but Cruz could pretend that he had nothing to do with those ads.
   

   Super PAC ad and an example of dirty media attack

2. Entertainer in the Past: A lot of the Trump statements that people and the media bring up happened when he was a carefree civilian, a celebrity and an entertainer. The New York tabloid world and shock jocks such as Howard Stern loved Trump since he guaranteed higher ratings for their magazines and radio shows. The more outrageous things he said, the better.
3. Political Correctness: In our excessively politically correct world, everyone has to pretend to be very polite while they may say all kinds of incendiary things in private circles.
4. (Entertaining) Speeches Without Teleprompters: This sounds simple but it’s really hard (and why other politicians don’t do it). Traveling all  over the country, Trump gives hour-long speeches that are 100% off-the-cuff. Although the main message is the same, he mixes it up, goes off tangent sometimes, mentions events that happened recently – maybe just hours before, and does it all with humor and extraordinary energy. With such a style, it’s easy for the media to take something out of context or to turn a joke into something diabolical.
5. Really, Really Tough Race: During the last 10 months of Trump running in the presidential race, he had to be unorthodox to survive. He was running against 16 experienced politicians –  Governors and Senators backed by powerful and rich donors. For example, Jeb Bush started with $160 million and unsurpassed name recognition in politics; Ted Cruz spent $140 million and was backed by formidable Super PACs and bankers such as Goldman Sachs.  Everyone was attacking Trump since he was #1 in the poll since day one. As for the media, they treated Trump with disdain and never considered him to be a viable candidate. Powerful Republican oligarchs (Koch brothers and others) and the entire political Establishment turned on him with relentless fury – $75 million on 64,000+ negative TV ads, radio ads, endless stream of attack articles and much more – when they realized he was serious about winning.
6. Shoestring Budget: Trump is spending his own money. He is similar to a startup taking on giant corporations with limitless budget. He didn’t follow any of the conventional rules on how to run a presidential campaign. For example, he spent very little to nothing on areas that are considered to essential to any political campaign:
   • No highly-paid pollsters, data analysts, consultants, speechwriters and analysts
   • Barely any TV/radio ads
   • Not using hundreds of professional campaign staff
   • No numerous campaign offices all over the country running the “ground game”
   • No real “grassroots” of tens of thousands of volunteers
   • Virtually no effort spent on phone banks and voter turnout campaigns.
   • And he absolutely spent no time on fundraising from individuals as well as lobbyists, corporations and oligarchs. Although, through his website, people can buy a few things such as his famous “Make America Great Again” hats from his website or even donate to his campaign, Trump never spends any time soliciting money.
   • Thanks to this unprecedented and mindboggling campaign strategy, Trump spent under $50 million and won the nomination. All the other Republican candidates spent more than $800 million combined and lost.

(In any other objective view, Trump would be viewed as a genius extraordinaire for having accomplished what he has done. His primary outreach campaign efforts are his Facebook page and Twitter account which are followed by devoted fans who write tens of thousands of comments every day, cheering him on.)

So, considering the above points, Trump has been in a David versus Goliath battle since the beginning. He has to not just fight back, but fight back hard and sometimes engage in political guerilla warfare in order to survive and win. He has to find creative ways to market himself and maintain the enthusiasm of his followers, even if it meant using unconventional methods.

Also, in spite of the narrative that he got a lot of free media coverage, the media never treated him fairly. For example, they never show the amazing crowd in his rallies, and instead show only zoomed in pictures.

When the media reports on his rally, they never talk about his speech or the crowd. Instead they focus on the protesters outside the rally. Sometimes the protesters sneak into the crowd and disrupt Trump’s speech. Next day, all that the media will talk about are the protesters. And if there is a fight or a riot, the media just loves it even more since it means mindless sensational “clickbait” articles with shocking titles.

The few times where the media does focus on his speeches, they use that to make him look bad. The media would take things out of context, make his jokes sound sinister, laugh at his missteps or simply launch childish attacks.

Another blatant and unethical media bias is how the media treats Trump supporters. For example:

** Always Blame Trump Supporters: Thousands of articles have been written about the “violence at Trump rallies” but they all fail to mention the most obvious reason: the Democrats who go to Trump rallies. It’s like someone comes to your house, starts a fight and then blames you for the fight. It’s such an Orwellian propaganda that, by the way, is also used all the time in justifications of wars. For example, the CIA would train and send rebels/terrorists into a country such as Syria and then the media will shed crocodile tears for the good people of Syria who are fighting a tyrant!

** Disdain for Trump Supporters: In the corporate media, there is a weird and intense prejudice against poor whites and whites of the South. This is one type of prejudice that is easily accepted by the otherwise politically correct people who profess love and tolerance for all. In Facebook, for example, it is very common to see liberals resort to vulgar stereotypes and say that Trump supporters are inbred, uneducated, stupid etc. The media promoted such stereotypes for Trump’s entire campaign until he won six Eastern states in a row – NY, PA, MD, CT, RI, DE – at which point there were some articles acknowledging how Trump supporters are actually well educated and wealthier than the average American.

Even “respectable” magazines resort to overt anti-Trump propaganda. For example, an article in Washington Post on May 5 has the title “The Outlandish Conspiracy Theories Many Trump Supporters Believe.” But if you read the article, one can only conclude that all Americans believe in conspiracy theories – ” A majority of Democrats, for example, told Fairleigh Dickinson that it was at least possible that President George W. Bush knew about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 before they occurred.”

** Propagandist Use of the Phrase “Trump Supporter”: For probably the first time in the history of the media, crimes get reported while associating them with a candidate or their employer. Imagine how ridiculous it would be to read an article that says, “Obama supporter caught selling drugs”… or “IBM employee punched his neighbor.” But that’s exactly what the media has been doing to Trump for the last many months. Example of a ridiculous title of a story from Salon below.

** Blatantly False Stories About Trump Supporters: The media just reports stories without doing any research or gathering proof. Here is a story about a woman who claims that some guy jumped out of a car, shouted “Trump 2016” and punched her. Reason? She had painted a naked picture of Donald Trump. No proof needed, no witnesses required. She says she filed a police report, but the media doesn’t take the time to get a proof of that either. Furthermore, different outlets post different pictures of the alleged victim (note the tattoo) and with bruises on different sides of the face! When it comes to Trump, anything goes!

Conclusion

With the entire Establishment – the media, the political machinery, Wall Street, oligarchs, bankers and corporations – turned against him, Donald Trump had to resort to unconventional and brash tactics to get his message across and win the nomination. In a subsequent blog post, I will go through his policies and explain why they will truly Make America Great Again.

P.S. As mentioned earlier in this blog, here is a heartfelt testimony from an African American woman – Lynne Patton – who is a Trump executive and also a longtime family friend of the Trumps:

Related Blogs:

Why Trump is not a racist or a bigot

Why Trump Will Win  (Quick Read)

Why “Obama Recovery” is Fake