Grigol Kalandadze

Associate Professor

Georgian International University GIU LLC

 Tbilisi, Georgia

Abstract

The 2016 US election campaign tends to be memorable with its polarizing nature. Surprisingly, the successful businessman Donald Trump defeated a renowned political figure Hillary Clinton, breaking many existing stereotypes around the US presidential marathon. Appearing in front of his supporters at the election night, Republican Trump informed the American as well as the world communities of the need for unification against the US challenges.

Trump, an inexperienced political figure with brilliant entrepreneurial skills, managed to win a major electoral chess party against the politically skillful Democratic contender. It appears that Trump’s political messages and program were more acceptable to the majority of US states than his opponent’s. In this sense, it is interesting to study the aspects of political charisma of two main participants of the 2016 US elections.

Keywords

US elections; charisma; leadership; electorate

Introduction

The words, by which Donald Trump started his speech as a winner of 2016 presidential elections, describe him as a candidate associating himself primarily with the electorate’s interests:

“I’ve just received a call from Secretary Clinton. She congratulated us… it’s about us… on our victory, and I congratulated her and her family on a very, very hard-fought campaign… Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country” (CNN staff, 2016).

Bearing in mind the fact that the final results were unexpectedly astonishing for major analytical and journalistic groups (Aswad, 2019, pp. 56-57), it can be argued that these elections had a serious impact on the change of political and social life in the United States. Thereafter, the research question arises: which factor(s) contributed to Donald Trump’s unexpected victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016?

Various reasons can be pointed out to explain this electoral paradox. One of such reasons is the contrast between both candidates’ personal characteristics of political leadership (Aswad; 2019, p. 57). Therefore, it can be interesting to compare Clinton and Trump’s individual charisma. Arguably, dozens of media sources found Hillary Clinton to be lacking charismatic political approaches whereas Trump’s speeches as well as attitudes towards the major opponent, media and society were mostly assessed as memorable and penetrant (Aswad, 2019, p. 57). Such facts draw one’s attention to a significant circumstance: Trump’s representable manners and persuasive speeches could be impressive for an average voter. This increases the interest in studying the 2016 presidential elections in the frames of political psychology. More specifically, the emphasis of the article is on evaluating the charismatic traits in both Republican and Democratic nominees of the aforementioned elections. Thereafter, the following hypothesis can be formulated according to the research question given above: charismatic personality traits contributed to Donald Trump’s unexpected victory over HIllary Clinton in 2016.  

Interestingly, the article is oriented on the charismatic traits of major contestants of the 2016 presidential marathon. The attention is mainly drawn to the advertising style, main messages and contents of the political promises of each candidate during the debates as well as relations with media professionals and society/electorate. The review of existing scientific literature on the 2016 US elections is given a separate part in the article. The conclusions are drawn according to the study of indicators which are described in the research design in detail.

Literature Review

Review of scientific sources is important to indicate the research gaps which are aimed to be studied in the article. One of the important authors on the 2016 presidential elections is Noor Ghazal Aswad. The researcher pays attention to the fact that the academic sphere lacks sufficient research with Hillary Clintona and Donald Trump’s campaign, especially in the context of charismatic leadership (Aswad, 2019, p. 57). This shows an important scientific gap in the topic which has to be filled by a separate study. Therefore, this circumstance can be an important motivator to use this gap as the essence of the given article. Ghazal Aswad puts an important emphasis on the fact that there is a diversity of opinion on Trump and Clinton’s charismatic aspects between journalists, analysts and researchers (Aswad, 2019, p. 57). Thereafter, the 2016 presidential campaign topic is worth studying in the frames of charismatic characteristics. Ghazal Aswad discusses the essence of charisma and points out the criteria for its evaluation (Aswad, 2019, p. 60) which are important for the construction of the theoretical framework discussed more in detail in the research design part. It has to be remarked that Ghazal Aswad’s research is valuable to understand the importance of certain elements of political psychology in the 2016 election campaign, especially charisma. However, none of the candidate’s political stance is sufficiently evaluated by their speeches, messages and advertising style. It is only superficially mentioned that Clinton’s eighty nine and Trump’s sixty six political speeches of the electoral campaign are studied in Ghazal Aswad’s article, providing only the general overview of both candidate’s campaigning (Aswad, 2019, p. 62). This factor once again strengthens the importance of the given article’s research.

The important researchers with regard to the 2016 presidential elections Jayeon Lee and Young-shin Lim. They focus on the social media campaigning of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and make main emphasis on the gender factor. To the authors’ observation, Clinton was more oriented on her personal patriarchal qualities while discussing women’s problems and challenges. Nevertheless, Trump would only focus on men’s problems without taking notice of his own characteristics (Lee & Lim, 2016, pp. 849). This is an important factor from the point of view of the given article’s thesis: it appears that both Democratic and Republican candidates had their own approaches towards disseminating their messages across social media. Lee and Lim remark that more than 79 percent of Trump’s tweets consisted of simple, easily understandable words and sentences whereas Hillary Clinton would actively use various visual and original forms of storytelling in social media (more than 58 percent)  This is also an important factor to distinguish each nominee’s unique style in this sense. Despite the fact that the value of Lee and Lim’s research is exceptional due to the researchers’ focus on stereotypes and other psychological aspects of the 2016 electoral campaign (Lee & Lim, 2016, pp. 849-851), it does not perfectly cover the issues connected to Trump and Clinton’s charismatic characteristics. Thereafter, this research is also an important catalyst of carrying out the additional study on charisma of both candidates.

The interesting points are also given by Alessandro Nai and Jürgen Maierb. The researchers pay attention to the personality traits of candidates in 2016 presidential elections. To their observation, “Trump was usually portrayed as thin-skinned, narcissistic, bellicose, and disagreeable, whereas Clinton was seen as dependable, organized, and experienced, albeit cold and arrogant. However, little systematic evidence supports this assessment.” (Nai & Maierb, 2017, pp. 80). This statement is a good proof why the results of the 2016 elections were different from the pre-existing expectations: the scientific and analytical approach towards the case shows that Hillary Clinton was not able to create an image of herself so that most voters would become sympathetic to her during the election night. The authors use three components to analyze the 2016 campaign of both nominees: their populist approaches, negative messages against each other and psycho-emotional attitudes. According to the research, Trump was not concentrated on elitist approaches and was using a very simple and less standardized style of communication with the voters, while being emotionally unstable. Unlike him, Clinton had a balance of characteristics like transparency, negotiability, breeding of fear and hope, etc. (Nai & Maierb, 2017, pp. 81-82). This analysis does not compare the specific messages, aspects of debates and advertising and other elements of the 2016 election campaign. Thereafter, it depicts the importance of a separate research about Clinton and Trump’s charismatic traits.

The important research is also carried out by Joshua D. Wright and  Monica F. Tomlinson. They focus on the personality characteristics of Trump and Clinton in the 2016 elections. According to their research, “…Trump voters perceived him as higher in all personality traits compared to Clinton, while Clinton voters perceived her as higher in agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience, but perceived Trump as higher in extraversion” (Wright & Tomlinson, 2018, p. 23). The research is interesting, as the authors cover the characteristics of each nominee. However, it lacks the comparison of those characteristics in the context of charismatic approaches. This circumstance strengthens the significance of the research of the given article. No less important are the findings made by Sudeep Bhatia,   Geoffrey P. Goodwin and Lukasz Walasek. They find the link between Hillary and Trump’s personalities and general characteristics, based on the study of each candidate’s electorate’s activities in the media. Ability, agency, character, communion, goodness, grit, morality, strength, warmth – these are the nine traits on which the authors pay main attention (Bhatia, Goodwin & Walasek, 2018, p. 126). Despite the fact that these characteristics are indicated in the research, the study lacks the focus on the charisma of each candidate. This circumstance once again points to the importance of a new study in this field.

The literature review indicates that there is a lack of academic sources that have the emphasis on Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s charismatic personality characteristics in the 2016 election campaign. Thereafter, as indicated above, there is a necessity to study the topic.

Research Design

Research design is a pivotal part of the article. It should be noted that the research design consists of conceptualization, operationalization and research methods. Conceptualization is an important part of the research design. First and foremost, the independent and dependent variables have to be pointed out. The independent variable, according to the hypothesis of the article, is charismatic personality traits and the dependent variable – Trump’s victory over Clinton. The major concept that needs to be defined is charisma which, according to a signaling theory, can be defined as a politicians’ capability, encompassing values and emphatic aspects, to attract and convince the electorate in accepting their political views. This is a capability which is strongly connected to leadership and management skills, portraying the political figure as an influential who will never digress in fighting for ordinary people’s needs (Aswad, 2019, p. 59). Thereafter, the article focuses on the charismatic traits of 2016 major Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, studying the principal differences between two candidates’ charismatic personalities.

Operationalization is also an important part of the research design. Charisma is assessed in the article with the following criteria, based upon Ghazal Aswad’s study: 1. Collective focus – the subject of evaluation is the candidate’s capability to associate himself/herself to a person strongly integrated into the society; 2. Followers’ worth – candidate’s skills towards becoming favorable and trustworthy for their electorate are assessed; 3. Similarity to followers – it has to be studied whether the general lifestyle and moral norms of the candidate (spouse, children, income, etc.) are close to societal understandings; 4. Cooperation – it has to be evaluated whether the candidate has the capability for showing himself/herself as a member of the hard-working team; 5. Action oriented – the subject of study is the candidate’s readiness to actively fulfill national tasks in a timely manner; 6. Adversity – candidate’s willingness to overcome the comfort zone and initiate significant dramatic changes has been studied; 7. Tangibility – the focus is on the candidate’s capability to remain agile towards specific challenges by implementing specific political initiatives (Aswad, 2019, pp. 60, 61, 62). So, this is the theoretical framework within which the study is carried out in the article.

Research methods, as also a significant section of the research design, should contain the major methods to study the topic. It should be remarked that both qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to study the 2016 elections. The comparative case study method is used in the article (Babbie, 2016, p. 304), as it is important to carry out the research connected to the 2016 election case in the context of comparing and contrasting Trump and Clinton’s charisma. Furthermore, descriptive statistics is also an important method (Babbie, 2016, p. 451) in order to use quantitative data such as election results, poll results and other kinds of statistical information, valuable to carry out the research. Moreover, content analysis (Babbie, 2016, p. 223) and textual analysis (Frey, Botan, & Kreps, 2000, p. 225) are also important methods to understand and evaluate the context of 2016 election messages, speeches and general advertising texts of both Republican and Democratic candidates.

Analysis

Trump’s paradox

Communication is an important aspect for the electorate to decide on the specific candidate during the elections. This is a merging component of the chain of candidate’s qualities such as managerial skills, political background and activity, general psychological condition and attitudes, etc. (Aswad, 2019, p. 58). The US elections are not an exception. Keeping in mind the general practice which shows that the electorate decides candidates’ maturity for the presidential position in accordance with those candidates’ verbal and non-verbal communication style (Aswad, 2019, p. 58), it can be argued that political psychology aspects play a crucial role in the US election nominees’ fortune. This statement shows the importance for the creation of a strong link between a candidate, on the one hand and the media and society, on the other.

The essence of political figures’ relations with media and society lies in the fact that most electors lack the opportunity to have close contact with the presidential candidates. The evidence of charismatic personality in public meetings with the electorate appears to be one of the decisive factors, according to surveys and research (Aswad, 2019, p. 58). The same can be said about the campaign advertising and debates which are also the candidates’ forms of communication with the electorate. All these aspects increase the significance of analyzing Trump and Clinton’s personal charisma during the 2016 elections. Thereafter, it has to be pointed out that during his meetings with the voters, Trump always tried to show himself as a member of a huge team called the US citizens. For instance, in his speech during the Republican National Convention in front of the huge electorate, Trump had the following remarks:

“USA, USA, USA. Who would’ve believed that when we started this journey on June 16th last year, we, and I say we, because we are a team, would have received almost 14 million votes, the most in the history of the Republican Party and that the Republican Party would get 60 percent more votes than it received eight years ago…” (ABC News; 2016).

Needless to say that there is a strong emphasis on the candidate as a social rather than an individual phenomenon. This strengthens Trump’s personality in the context of a collective focus, as he pays much attention to the word “we” emphasizing its essence in harmony with the evidently increasing number of supporters of his party. Trump’s aforementioned appearance in front of the voters after becoming the projected winner of 2016 elections shows the same circumstance, as he mentioned Hillary Clinton’s wishing of success not only to himself personally but also to the whole Republicans. At the same time, he called for the whole electorate’s unification afterwards, regardless of political preferences (CNN staff, 2016). All these statements make it clear that from the perspective of political psychology, Trump’s political identity was crucially linked to collective focus. This could be an important antecedent for the electorate’s worth in case of the Republican nominee. The aforementioned 2016 election night is a good indicator of this fact: the voters became sympathetic towards Donald Trump which enabled him to gain 306 Electoral College scores, enough to become a winner (The New York Times, 2017).

Keeping in mind Hillary Clinton’s advantage in the post-October 19 debate polls (Morning Consult, 2016), one might argue that Clinton was more favorable and most voters were more sympathetic to her than to her opponent. The percentages were more in favor of Clinton but there was one question in which most voters (51 percent) expressed their sympathy towards Trump’s political activities: to their mind, the Republican candidate was more adequate than reckoned before while giving the answers to Clinton as well as moderator’s questions and critical points (The New York Times, 2017). This, at a glance, small detail proves that the electorate was not antagonistic towards Trump during the 2016 electoral campaign, even though undoubtedly Hillary Clinton was a front-runner in the aforementioned polling. So, presumably, Trump managed to acquire the electorate’s trust and attain positive feedback in this part of charismatic personality as well. This proves the paradoxical reality that Trump was creating. He did not succeed in the debate whereas during the election night he managed to gain the victory.

Trump can be said to be successful in similarity with voters. Even Hillary Clinton associated him with an exemplary father and husband during the second debate. To the Democratic nominee’s opinion, her major opponent’s kids’ positive attitudes and behavior meant Trump was a remarkable family-lover (The New York Times, 2016). These facts show that Trump was close to the general electorate’s lifestyle because his major opponent pointed out his family as his major positive side. Despite the fact that the scandals arouse around his personality in this aspect as well (e. g. scandal related to Stormy Daniels’ affair (Rothfeld and Palazzolo, 2018)), her major opponent’s praise towards Trump’s children preserved this aspect of his charismatic personality as well. Therefore, it can be argued that this type of resemblance to the voters increased his chances to become the winner. Having in mind cooperation as an important quality for charisma, it should once again be remarked that the focus on the term “we” in most speeches would make the Republican nominee’s charisma exceptional. As discussed above, it appears that this quality bred in most voters the feeling of belonging which is the third stair in Maslow’s hierarchical pyramid together with the sense of love (Copley, 2024). Thereafter, it can be said that the synthesis of similarity with voters and willingness for collaboration increases the sympathetic attitudes in the electorate. This is evident from the fact that 55 percent of the married electors voted for Trump while 39 percent of the aforementioned voters supported Clinton in 2016 (Pew Research Center, 2018). It can be argued that in the thinking of an average voter, Trump was associated with the charismatic political figure resembling the ordinary citizens’ lifestyle and being ready to work in the team of the US society.

Trump’s activities tend to describe him as a person full of courage and enthusiasm. He used to show himself always ready to undertake steps which some people could even think to be out of the clear blue. This can be best understood by one of his extraordinary initiatives related to the construction of a wall on the Mexican boundary. Trump announced the following during his 2016 campaign speech in Arizona: “We will build a wall along the Southern Border… We will use the best technology… to supplement the wall, find and dislocate tunnels, and keep out the criminal cartels” (Politico Staff, 2016). It seems that Trump was an action oriented person willing to execute every important initiative just as he thought. The initiative related to the wall seems to encompass one more quality of the charismatic personality: adversity. This can be explained by the fact that the initiative related to the wall could somehow be a traumatic change for American society. While some people thought that it was populism, President Trump started building the wall after becoming the president (Prendergast, 2020). One more argument in favor of Trump’s remarkable adversity would be his decision to leave the convenient life of a businessman and transfer to politics. It seems that he assured the electorate of being coherently and fearlessly resistant towards challenges. Thereafter, his tangibility characteristics can best be read in the campaign against the Obamacare program. After becoming the president, Trump made serious surgical interventions into the program by leaving only 10% of the existing Obamacare budget and decreased financial benefits for becoming a beneficiary (Luhby, 2024).

The above analysis of Trump’s personality shows that he more or less satisfies each criteria of the charismatic political figure. Therefore, it can be argued that the Republican nominee managed to gain victory in the 2016 elections with the help of political psychology. 

Clinton’s rise and fall

It becomes evident from Hillary Clinton’s campaign that she had more emphasis on her individualism rather than on being the representative of the society. This can be assumed from her speech in Florida in March, 2016:

„I am so delighted to be here with you in Florida. I congratulate Sen. Sanders on his strong showing and campaigning. I’m grateful to all of you who voted for me, to the volunteers and organizers. I know you worked your hearts out. To all my friends, many of a lifetime who traveled to all the states to tell people about the candidate they knew, and the hundreds of thousands of people who went to HillaryClinton.com to give what they could – most less than $100 – now this campaign moves forward to the Crescent City, Motor City and beyond“ (Golshan, 2016).

The psychological contents inside the speech can be understood in the following way: despite the fact that Clinton remarks the positive side of her Democratic opponent, Senator Sanders, she mentions her buddies supporting her personality all over the US. Furthermore, Clinton emphasizes the number of over 100 000 electors who donated money to her victory and increased her fame from California to Michigan (Golshan, 2016). These aspects prove that Hillary Clinton was not much in favor of collective focus and would rather highlight her personality both in case of in-group (inside the Democratic party) and out-group (she as a part of the American electorate) activities. Thereafter, she was willing to play the 2016 chess party not by a principal-agent model but by a rather didactic approach.

In the same speech, Clinton addresses the voters with the following message: “Like many of you, I find strength and purpose from my family and my faith” (Golshan, 2016). At a first glimpse of an eye, there is nothing problematic in this phrase. However, the careful analysis of the message shows Clinton’s strong dependance on her own family’s interests as well as internal feelings and motivations. It may be argued that this message again neglects the need for collective focus, relating Democratic candidate’s political identity mainly to her individual political agenda. Despite all this, these facts to a certain extent strengthen Clinton’s similarity towards voters, as she tries to show herself as a family-loving housewife. She tried to portray her image in the media and society’s mind as a good mother, wife and grandmother which would breed in most voters the sense of similarity. Nevertheless, as analyzed above, Hillary Clinton received a smaller amount of votes (39 percent) from the married electorate than Trump (55 percent)(Pew Research Center, 2018). Therefore, it can be argued that maybe in the eyes of several voters she was an exemplary family-lover but it is a fact that she did not have a strong support from the married couples. This may to a certain extent be connected to Trump’s accusation of her Democratic contestant of being indifferent, tolerant and even supportive towards her husband, US President Bill Clinton’s abuses towards women. Interestingly, Trump had a message to the electorate on this topic, containing the contents that during his first debate he did not unlock the secrets of Bill and Hillary Clintons scandalous life and was promising to do this in future (Boburg, 2016). So the aspects of political psychology, mainly with regard to the candidates’ message box towards each other played an important role in this affair too: it becomes evident that Trump, who was also blamed for scandals (Rothfeld and Palazzolo, 2016), assisted to lift the same burden to Hillary Clinton and irritated her aspect of similarity to voters. This circumstance had a negative impact on Clinton’s charisma.

It can be argued that Clinton was not much good at assuring the American electorate of being trustworthy towards her. The Democratic nominee of 2016 elections once even regretted that unlike her husband and President Barack Obama, she was unable to gain a direct trust from the average voter. “They are so natural … they can just go into a room and really capture it –They’ve got charisma. It was a lot harder for me”, – she spoke to iHeart radio (Aswad, 2019, p. 57). So Clinton was unable to provoke the emotions in the voters which are necessary in order to gain long-term trust. Bearing in mind the strong sarcastic criticism of Clinton’s charisma by Washington Post in 2016 (there was an emphasis on the need for rapid surgical intervention into Clinton’s charisma)(Aswad, 2019, p. 57), this kind of a drawback could be an important factor in the turnover of the October 19-20 pollings’ painting on the election day results. Despite the fact that the mentioned polls were in favor of Clinton (Morning Consult, 2016), it can be argued that the problem with regard to her follower’s worth delivered the contrasted outcomes of elections. 

It is also interesting how Clinton was doing in cooperation and action orientation aspects. As per the above analysis, Clinton had a strong focus on her own personality and despite one of her major slogans “Stronger Together”, she did not shape many messages to voters about the willingness for teamwork and devotion to collective welfare. According to the Democratic party members and activists, Clinton together with only her campaign managers were “…insular and self-assured.  …Presumptuous, know-it-all attitude caused …to ignore early warning signs of electoral trouble inside the states, and demoralized DNC staff who felt largely marginalized or altogether neglected for most of the campaign” (Catanese, 2016). Believe it or not, Clinton’s individual problems with the teamwork capability were evident inside the Democratic party and were revealed to the society only after the announcement of the election results. Clinton can thus be judged for the lack of skills of cooperation and this could have made a significant negative impact on her charisma among the voters. This could have also portrayed her political personality as being less action-oriented. 

Adversary and tangibility aspects also have to be stressed. It has to be emphasized from the above analysis that Clinton did not have any such types of revolutionary initiatives as building a metal wall against immigrants, quitting social and/or healthcare programs, etc. She had a rather refined, usual style of relations with the electorate. The Democratic nominee was locking herself into a strictly standardized, structured and career-oriented politician’s psychology, expressing less enthusiasm towards transcending the existing boundaries to implement traumatic reforms. Her public speeches and main messages towards the huge audience of voters were more hackneyed than pragmatic and spontaneous. She was not sitting in the boat swimming under the idiomatic expression: “drastic times call for drastic measures”. Her promises would rather contain the messages like “…if you cheat your employees, exploit consumers, pollute our environment or rip off the taxpayers, we’re going to hold you accountable”; “Add more good jobs… Jobs that provide dignity and a bright future”; “Don’t let anybody tell you we can’t make things [in] this America anymore…” (Golshan, 2016).. These messages, lacking precise contents, containing negative context (especially the last example), breeding arrogance in Clinton’s image and taking her at a distance from the usual electorate, could have played a negative role in Clinton’s 2016 political campaign. All this also indicated the lack of charisma in Hillary Clinton’s political activities which, actually, resulted in the candidate’s defeat. So, although Donald Trump himself emphasized that Hillary Clinton’s major positive quality is that she never concedes and tries to fight using every strength (The New York times, 2016), it can be discussed that the banal elements and arrogant approaches in her 2016 campaign led to her unsuccessful outcomes.

In sum, it can be argued that an experienced political figure Hillary Clinton lacked the political charisma which caused her to lose elections against an unskillful politician. It appears that the Democratic nominee’s inappropriate style of communication, elitist approaches and less prepared message box led to her fall during the elections, despite her rise in the campaign polls.

Conclusion

The analysis of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s political charisma shows that each candidate’s image had its pros and cons. It is also evident from the research results that Trump’s personal characteristics were related to more extraordinary, unique and long-term goals and activities whereas Clinton concentrated more on self-actualization and rational style of political campaign in 2016.

It becomes clear from the article that charismatic traits played an important role in the victory of the Republican nominee in 2016. However, certain positive sides of the Democratic candidate’s image, discussed in the article (family-lover person; woman who never gives up, etc.), contributed to the fact that Clinton won the popular vote with 48 percent. In contrast, Trump’s exceptional and original campaigning style, filled with messages about dramatic changes as well as strict approaches towards the national tasks and willingness for teamwork, led to the Republican candidate’s victory in the Electoral College, even though Trump was not able to take more than 45.9 percent in the popular vote.

To summarize the article, it should be mentioned that when both Trump and Clinton were asked to distinguish major pros in each other’s personalities, Trump remarked on the Democratic nominee’s non-conceding personal characteristic while Clinton stressed Trump’s kids (The New York Times, 2016). This also shows Trump’s charismatic strength over Clinton: The Republican candidate was able to emphasize Hillary Clinton’s personal positive trait whereas Clinton failed the task by focusing on Trump’s children, i. e. other persons and not precisely on Trump. This contrast could have also contributed to the results that were finally delivered by the candidates in the elections. 

Bearing in mind all the above analyzed facts, it is clear that Trump’s exceptional charisma strengthened his advantage during the 2016 US election. Despite his loss in the 2020 elections (CNBC News, 2020), Trump was able to regenerate his strength and is still the major Republican nominee for the presidential position in the 2024 elections (Ramirez, 2024). This indicates that Trump  is still an actual, phenomenal personality in US political life.

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