THE IMPERFECT STORM: TEN WAYS DONALD TRUMP SWIFT-BOATED AMERICA

Note: I wrote this story just before the 2016 Election, for Newstalk Ireland, in an effort to explain how Trump had changed the very landscape of US politics, and the day before the 2020 vote seems to be a good time to run it again. It holds up particularly well today, because it turned out, unsurprisingly, that his approach to the presidency was almost identical to his campaigning tactics. Looking back, I see a number of points that were prescient, and would come back to haunt us as we discussed Trump. And it was predictive, or did you not see Trump campaigning in Michigan with a giant Big Brother photo of himself being shared on a huge screen with the crowd. I haven’t changed the story, except to make it a little clearer, and keep the time line clear.

Swift-Boating is a political campaigning technique of deflecting your most vulnerable weakness by attacking your opponent on the same grounds. It was pioneered by Roger Ailes, a Nixon advisor who became head of Fox News before resigning in the face of accusations of sexual misconduct in the Fox workplace, and given its name by Karl Rove, chief advisor to George W Bush. In 2004, Bush was faced with the story of his having dodged the Vietnam War with a cushy gig in the Texas National Guard arranged by his father, and then having gone AWOL on that gig to work in politics in Alabama. The story had been broken in 2000, by Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, but during that election had gained no traction nationally, and Bush was appointed…