Ok, I have to admit, I am on a little bit of a Donald Trump kick in my writings over the last few weeks.
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And why not?
The former president is a headline factory that just won’t stop.
And since I watched him give his first foreign policy speech at the Mayflower Hotel literally 100 feet away from where I stood back in 2016, watching him is watching history unfold – and yes, opinions will differ on whether that is good or bad for sure.
Putting all of that aside, in preparation for a book I am thinking about writing, I have been digging deep, asking a lot of questions to GOP insiders about Trump, what makes him tick, how he makes decisions, and why so many conservatives worship at his feet. You will see a lot more of Trump in this space – and soon.
Why Does the GOP Love Donald Trump?
The core question I keep coming back to is pretty simple: why is Donald Trump so loved in flyover country and rural parts of America? For example, I live in a pretty rural part of Maryland 40 miles north of Washington, D.C., and it is very much Donald Trump country.
My theory has always been that he appeals to the blue-collar Americans that feel forgotten, unseen, and generally rejected in society.
So many Americans have been left behind economically, and they identify with much of what Trump says, at least the thinking goes.
One former George W. Bush White House official I have known for years seems to agree with me – to a point.
In an interview I did with this person for my book, I asked what he saw as the appeal to Donald Trump.
He was pretty blunt – more so than I guessed he would:
“For me, I always thought Donald Trump mind fu*ked America. What I mean is he used a sort of Jedi mind trick to get the GOP to appreciate his policies and then adopt them. I never thought Trump was even a conservative, more a populist with conservative leanings that would nominate Supreme Court justices and enact overall conservative policy.
Trump’s great skill, however, is that he knows how to make the media cover him in an age of 24 hours news cycles and social media dominating everything.
The man knows, good or bad, how to get press and say things that are so shocking that they aren’t enough to get him in serious trouble – most of the time – and keep the media wanting more and more. Trump has received tens of billions of dollars in free media coverage because he knows how to play them. No politician can do that or has done that.
But, to be honest, Trump is even better at giving many Americans what they want more than anything else: a no-BS attitude and that he can take on anyone. At his core, he gives off the perception that he is a fighter. People connect with that.
For some reason, all of this gets put into a blender, and millions of Americans love it. For some, yes, it is odd, but it does work. And it’s why Trump can win in 2024.”
About the author: Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula) serves as President and CEO of Rogue States Project, a bipartisan national security think tank. He has held senior positions at the Center for the National Interest, the Heritage Foundation, the Potomac Foundation, and many other think tanks and academic institutions focused on defense issues. He served on the Russia task force for U.S. Presidential Candidate Senator Ted Cruz, and in a similar task force in the John Hay Initiative. His ideas have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, CNN, CNBC, and many other outlets across the political spectrum. He holds a graduate degree in International Relations from Harvard University and is the author of The Tao of A2/AD, a study of Chinese military modernization. Kazianis also has a background in defense journalism, having served as Editor-In-Chief at The Diplomat and Executive Editor for the National Interest.
