For me, Trump – along with all other ‘strong willed’ politicians –
are more of a symptom than a cause.
And a cause, indeed, but first and foremost a symptom.

One way to figure out the dynamics of what’s going on around/to us is ‘resources, structure, agency’.
For lack of a proper term, I just sequenced the steps of the figuring out process.

For anything to happen, that thing has to start from ‘somewhere’. Some resources are needed at the start of anything.
For anything to happen in a certain manner, that something has to happen inside a ‘space’. Which ‘space’ ‘behaves’ according to a a set of ‘rules’.
For anything to happen, it has to start. To be put into motion. And, at the end, that ‘anything’ – already a ‘something’ – will produce a set of consequences. A ‘feedback’, supposedly carefully taken into consideration by those who had experienced it. And need to move forward.

Coming back to Trump, he couldn’t have happened, say, twenty years ago. The world, America in this case, had to be ready/readied for him. Well, in a sense, America – the American media, to be more precise – had worked hard to make him possible.

So should we blame the media for the advent of Trump?

Hm…

Remember the Apprentice? The show which made Trump famous?
That show was possible, and made Trump famous, because so many Americans watched it. For whatever reasons. By watching the Apprentice, America readied itself for Trump. For President Trump.

Then all those hosting reality-TV shows have a fair chance of becoming President?
After all, Zelensky also started as a TV personality…

Not so fast!
For anybody to become President, there are a few prerequisites.
That guy has to be famous.
That guy has to ‘push the right buttons’. To identify them. And to be willing to push them, regardless of any of the consequences.

Trump was famous enough. And callous enough to make use of some of the prevalent conditions present when he decided to make a run for the Oval Office.
Birtherism was already present. Trump only gave it a louder voice.
Abortion was already a hot issue. Trump only changed his mind about it. From “very pro-choice” in 1999 to “pro-life” in 2011.
But the most important factor which made President Trump possible was public discontent.
MAGA could not become such a powerful slogan if so many people were not already feeling left behind.

Coincidence?

Trumpification?
In a sense, yes. Trump did identify the circumstances prevalent when he made up his mind as opportunities. As resources towards his wishes. Then used the already existing ‘rules’ – and political customs – in his favor.
But can we pretend he had Trumpified politics? Can we pretend he changed the way politics was done in order to serve his purposes?

Or it would be more appropriate to say that a majority – as per how America elects its President – of “We, the People” have allowed him to do as he pleased? For whatever reasons?

““They really don’t care about, is he religious or not,” said R. Marie Griffith, a religion and politics professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
The survey results represent the shift in how white evangelicals now talk about morality and religion in politics, said Griffith. She pointed to a white evangelical culture that takes care of its own, but sees liberal outsiders as evil, and therefore, support for a Democrat is unimaginable to many.
Evangelical leaders, she said, are pushing this idea that, “this is God’s man, and we can’t ask why. We don’t have to ask why. It doesn’t matter if he’s moral, it doesn’t matter if he’s religious. It doesn’t matter if he lies compulsively. It’s for the greater good that we get him re-elected.””

It’s for the greater good…