Once again, Donald Trump has won the American presidency. In the autopsy, pundits will cite broad factors of the electoral environment like inflation, immigration, distrust of liberal institutions, the right-wing echo chamber of alternative media, and backlash to the Biden foreign policy doctrine to explain the victory.
However, this discounts a simpler explanation: Donald Trump is a generationally savvy electoral juggernaut who made every possible correct decision in his campaign, earning his win by perfectly calibrating his strategy and demonstrating exemplary policy acumen.
An all-seeing strategist and leader on the order of Sun Tzu or Caesar, Trump has left his opponents only to cower at his towering intellect—and, perhaps, if they are lucky, attempt to divine a lesson or two from his glorious example. They include:
Bring up Hannibal Lecter as much as possible.
Dude, that movie is awesome.
Make shit up.
Did you see that they’re eating dogs and assassinating squirrels?
Rack up as many crimes as you can.
Then, when they try to arrest you, you can be like, “See, these guys hate me!!! What the hell!!!”
Do NOT know what you are going to say before you say it.
You want to read a speech? What are you, gay?
Actually, you can always just vibe on stage to chill ass music if you feel like it.
Working-class swing voters LOVE Pavarotti.
Appear for interviews exclusively on podcasts sponsored by erectile dysfunction pills and brain supplements.
Ideally, they’ve named their recording studio something like “The Dawg House,” and most of their questions are about how it feels to be in The Dawg House.
Really emphasize the “Lah” in “Lah-teen-os.”
That’s good for about 45 percent.
Allow your opponent to trot out countless former administration officials of yours who believe you are a fascist.
Nothing is more relatable than having a bunch of annoying coworkers who hate your vibe because they’re jealous.
Blast “YMCA” every time you get the aux.
This will help underscore the key themes of your campaign, like whether it’s fun to stay at the YMCA and mentioning all the fun things you can do there.
Promise that things can once again be as they were.
Time and tide wait for no man? That’s because you never had a president who could get in there and make a really, really good and, quite frankly, beautiful deal with time.
Threaten political violence if you lose.
People will decide that would be exhausting and just vote for you to win legit-style so as to avoid the rigmarole.
Hold a high-profile rally in an uncompetitive state with a cabal of the most viscerally repugnant people on Earth.
This will profoundly and uniformly resonate with all demographic groups.
Double down on a vision of America as a wretched, fearful place where anyone who differs even slightly from you is out to destroy you.
This will profoundly and uniformly resonate with all demographic groups.
Center your entire closing argument about how your opponent only cares about nonbinary people.
This will profoundly and uniformly resonate with all demographic groups.
Have a surrogate call an entire ethnic group garbage, act like it’s not a big deal, become ceaselessly aggrieved when you are called garbage, cosplay as a garbage man, and drive around in a stupid fucking garbage truck.
Honk! Honk!
Do not be a woman.
You’d be surprised how often people make this mistake.