5 Ways Trump Shows How to Win Elections The future belongs to Republicans who care more about their voters than the media. November 11, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
What can Republicans learn from Trump’s victory? The biggest lesson is that the old way of politics is dead. McCain and Romney showed that twice. Now Trump has shown how Republicans can actually win.
1. Find Your Natural Base
The GOP is ashamed of its base. It doesn’t like being associated with the very voters who made 2016 happen. Its autopsy last time around searched for ways to leave the white working class behind.
There’s a party that did that. Their symbol is a jackass. They just lost big because they ran out of working class white voters.
The Democrats have tried to manufacture their base using immigration, victimhood politics and identity politics. The GOP has wasted far too much time trying to compete on the same playing field while neglecting its base. Trump won by doing what the GOP could have done all along if its leadership hadn’t been too ashamed to talk to people it considered low class because they shop at WalMart.
The GOP wanted a better image. It cringed at Trump’s red caps and his rallies. And they worked.
Trump won because he found the neglected base of working class white voters who had been left behind. He didn’t care about looking uncool by courting them. Instead he threw himself into it.
That’s why McCain and Romney lost. It’s why Bush and Trump won.
The GOP is not the cool party. It’s never going to be. It’s the party of the people who have been shut out, stepped on and kicked around by the cool people. Trump understood that. The GOP didn’t.
The GOP’s urban elites would like to create an imaginary cool party that would be just like the Democrats, but with fiscally conservative principles. That party can’t and won’t exist.
You can run with the base you have. Or you can lose.