[cg5280]

A lot of politicians have tried to replicate Trump’s style with limited success. We could probably debate forever what it is about Trump that makes him unique. I think his crude and abrasive personality won people over; it felt authentic and cathartic. Nowadays I think he has immense inertia.

[sieep]

I remember hearing a lot of sentiment mid-2010s about how since he was a successful businessman that he will make good decisions in the White House. America was longing for someone that wasn't 'status quo', so to say.

I agree with you on the personality side, but I also think his overall fame from TV, real estate, etc. is just as big a factor to his political success.

[telchior]

Yeah the whole "successful businessman" schtick is pretty much a trope in US elections. Before Trump it was Ross Perot, before Perot it was others like Wendell Wilkie. Trump had that going for him AND the celebrity status like Reagan. These things are basically status buffs for elections in the US.

[SoftTalker]

Trump is also not afraid to say what a lot of people think. Telling a reporter they are "terrible" or talking about making America great. The way he does it resonates with a lot of folks.

[cool_man_bob]

> Telling a reporter they are "terrible" or talking about making America great. The way he does it resonates with a lot of folks.

Yeah, but I could do that. It’s pretty easy to, but I’m certain I wouldn’t be able to amass a cult of personality around myself.

Yet if I try, I’m pretty much universally considered an asshole, even from those who agree with me. There’s got to be more than just “he’s not afraid to say what we think”

[CrimsonCape]

Trump opponents might cringe at thinking about Trump as a leader, but it is the origin of his success. The L word is generally over-used and over-ascribed. For example, leadership might correlate with being a "hero" or being moral/just/fair,etc however there's lots of proof they don't correlate. It's a fallacy to think that a leader is also a hero. But some people do (fallaciously) ascribe these positive traits to leadership.

That said, in his domain, Trump leads; he generates the headlines and everyone else follows them.

Is JD Vance generating headlines? Barely. Is anyone else generating headlines? Lets consider a few:

- Tim Walz: mainstream media tries to meme Walz into being a headline generator, but he isn't, and poses no serious contention

- Mumar Gaddafi, Sadam Hussein, Hitler, Mussolini, etc: i'm not sure there has been a dictator that did not generate headlines.

- Steve Jobs: strong headline generator, such that he could have run for president and likely won

- pewdiepie: for a spell he was generating headlines, but mainstream media had no solid editorial narrative for the guy (and his hundreds of millions of followers) which posed a social risk. The more they discussed him, the more risk of society penduluming in some unpredictable way either by martyring him or amplifying his politics, so they chose the "ignore him and let whither" as a strategy which seemed to work, as he has drifted into Japan and been off-the-radar

- Luigi Mangione: a nonzero number of liberal voters would decry Trump in one breath and cast a vote for Mangione to be a politician despite evidence he is a cold-blooded murderer. This probably won't change much after conviction.

In conclusion, intelligent people are forced to lament the state of humanity in which leadership is game-ified so easily and yet so difficult to achieve. "How does one consistently generate headlines" is a difficult question to answer and seems to be one of the core essence of humanity. And, as described above, the origin of people's feelings of why a given person is successful.