Last week Donald Trump’s Press Secretary Kayleigh Mcenany brought small business owner Joe Shamess to the Presidential podium to discuss his company, Flags of Valor and how the CARES ACT has helped him and his enterprise endure the COVID19/Trump Recession. This is a political tactic and it is nothing short of genius. But this genius should not be attributed to the President, rather pimps have been using it for nearly 100 years.
In my book “To Pimp a Nation” I delve into the main weakness pimps utilize to attract and convert women into financial tools. That weakness is called the “self-esteem deficit.” The self-esteem deficit causes the afflicted person to dedicate endless energy into compensating for what they feel is missing. America mainly does this through advertising, where life is made to look so unreachably good that the average American spends their whole life and the majority of their productive energy trying to add up to media images.
Donald Trump very efficiently uses the self-esteem deficit with resounding effects. Whether due to brilliance or narcissism, the President capitalizes on “forgotten America’s” increasing fear of invalidity. Allowing Joe Samess to speak from the highest mountain top makes Trump’s base feel their voice could matter in a country they feel is elevating everyone but them. While MAGAs know chances of them speaking at a White House press briefing are slim, this is not the only place the President gives voice to “forgotten America. Every evening my phone begins buzzing with a barrage of re-tweets from Donald Trump. He re-tweets views praising him and defending his actions and ideals. He very often re-tweets fan-crafted videos praising him. No matter how ridiculous or hardline these tweets are, if the President likes it, he’ll re-tweet it. He once re-tweeted someone’s tweet calling to fire Anthony Fauci, one of only two adults in the COVID19 Task Force with a sincere interest in saving American lives. Trump is not only re-tweeting well-known names with confirmed accounts, he’s re-tweeting anyone who can create dazzling pro-Trump videos, articles or blogs. He gives recognition and credibility to anyone who can get his attention.
Trump casting praise from America’s highest position to potentially the lowliest not only gives credibility to the creator, it also incentivizes countless others to create and audition Presidential praise material in hopes of getting their own White House re-tweet. Like using studio audience laughter to tell television viewers a joke is funny, the flood of self-made, pro-Trump praise material tells swing voters that the President’s actions have widespread approval and that the Trump Train is pumping full-steam. Trump supporters who would normally be idle bystanders have been honing their creative skills and flooding social media timelines throughout the United States. As a film industry professional, I can say that Democrats have always had the upper hand in creativity and creative technology. Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects along with AVID, Premiere and Final Cut Pro were mainly tools of liberalism. Well, the scales have tipped and I’m seeing the most brilliant materials coming from the MAGA movement. Some are so good that even I tweet praise for the quality of their work. Like this guy:
The gloves are off in 2020 and Joe Biden had better step up his game. Without the commander sufficiently communicating with the individual soldiers no battle can be won. I’m not suggesting Joe Biden pimp his following, but it wouldn’t hurt to learn how to charm and sweet talk them. Running a careful campaign that informs the base solely through ads, debates and interviews is a thing of the past. And with rallies not being an option it is an absolute must that the Joe Biden campaign amplifies the voices of his base. In this smartphone era a wining candidate must not only speak directly to them, they must speak through them through with validating re-tweets and promotion of some of their ideas. The days of overly vetting anyone associated with a candidate are over. America consists mostly of people with past actions the media can exploit. Hillary Clinton learned the hard way in 2016 that being presidential does not appeal to American voters as much as a candidate they feel they can relate, that relates to them and tells them what they want to hear. What says that more than amplifying their voices?