2016 US election Essay

Whole Hillary Clinton used the contemporary political courses during her election campaigns, Donald Trump went out of his way to use unorthodox campaign activities. While Hillary's supporters perceived the election as a sure win for their supporter, surprisingly enough, Trump's agendas successfully gained him massive popularity. The odds against the victory of Donald Trump were so high that some of the party members were skeptical of the probability of his election as the president (Robinson, 2017). Senators and congressmen from the party were also uncertain of their stance with regard to the likelihood of his victory. The skepticism elevated when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a margin. Comparatively, Clinton exhibited good political organization, had a sound manifesto laden with exemplary policies (Eidlin, 2017).

Her campaign was perceived to be well-orchestrated with multiple levels of political, organization, and financial stratification (Eidlin, 2017). On the other hand, Trump's campaign was not only skeletal but also chaotic and with no distinct organization and/or structure of any form. On the basis of campaign structure and organization, Trump stood no chance of clinching victory over Clinton with all her political prowess. Discussion Factors for success Political analysts have extensively reviewed Trump's victory with the objective of exploring the primary tipping points that gained the current president a serious following. This behavioral theory is also exploited in a series of television shows, including ‘deal or no deal'. After accepting or experiencing a loss, humans are prone to take more uncalculated risks in an attempt to redeem their status.

This flawed decision-making tendency is also exhibited by investors. Though it is not apparent whether or not Trump was conscious in using this approach, its success was manifested by his victory. In the past, the turnout during elections has been dismal and in support of the Republican presidential aspirant. As a result, the youthful generation identifies with the man than it did with Hillary Clinton, the principal opponent. His celebrity status gave him an edge against his data-driven opponent. During his lifetime, Trump actively worked to create a name for himself in the social sphere as well as a real estate mogul. As a symbol of his affluence, he managed to appear on different magazine covers (Ilich, 2016). Such appearances attract the attention of persons from different social strata.

In connection to this, one of Trump's campaign graphics showed a bowl full of Skittles sweets (Faro, 2017). The caption accompanying this graphic implied that if presented with a choice to pick some sweets from the bowl, with the full understanding that only three sweets would be sufficient to cause death, what were the odds that one could pick a handful? (Faro, 2017). Trump likened the Syrian situation to this case scenario. According to behavioral theorists, when persons are faced with a challenge of estimating the effect of a given situation, their perception is more likely than not to be influenced by irrelevant factors. The use of the bowl of sweets, in this case, was an anchor. Making comparisons makes it possible to filter the good and the bad aspects of each candidate and weigh them on the basis of these perceived or expressed strengths and weaknesses.

Any fair comparison between Trump and Clinton would have revealed that Clinton was the overall better candidate. To diminish the possibility of comparisons, Trump alienated himself from the age-old political dogmas to which the American people have embraced for ages. His approach to all issues was different from what the people may have expected of a presidential candidate. By acting differently from the contemporary practices, Trump actively shielded himself from comparison with his rival. Alternative media, which is slowly gaining the momentum world overtook the lead in the coverage of Trump's campaign. Thousands of US citizens relied on alternative media to obtain news regarding political campaigns. Trump seized the opportunity to take advantage of the conservative media, such as The Daily, InfoWars among others to spread his political ideologies.

In US history, Trump became the first presidential candidate to use the conservative media to spread his agenda. Throughout his campaign, Trump reiterated his resentment of the mainstream media due to what he termed as bias and dishonesty. The silent majority, which desired change also happened to be result oriented without much consideration to the means through which the results were obtained. Thus, they easily bought Trump's approach to major issues irrespective of the obvious lack of detailed strategies on how to obtain the results. Due to his notable success in his real estate business, this faction was convinced that Trump was capable of delivering on his word. Another factor that contributed to Trump's victory was the significance of the Supreme court to the Republicans and other conservatives in general (Hazara.

net, 2017). Supporting Trump was in their best interests since it would support their religious views regarding major issues that the US is currently facing as stipulated herein. Role of campaign contributions In the past, campaigns and election outcomes are significantly affected by campaign contributions. While industries and individual firms are incapable of directly altering election outcomes, they react by throwing their financial muscles behind their preferred presidential candidate. The notion is that by promoting their candidate's campaign activities to boost his influence. In this case, for instance, firms in oil companies and other firms in the energy industry were among the greatest contributors to Trump's campaign. In the party primaries alone, he injected $46 million into the party in form of loans (Levine et al.

Eventually, he forgave these loans. If campaign funds were the determining factor for the success of a presidential candidate, it is apparent that Clinton would have won the elections by a landslide (York, 2016). Trump's victory defied contemporary wisdom which indicates that candidates with greater funding are more likely to win the elections as opposed to those with lower funding. As emphasized herein, the Republicans were not in support of Trump's presidential bid. References BBC (2017). Donald Trump's Life Story: From Hotel Developer to President. Retrieved from http://www. bbc. com/news/world-us-canada-35318432 Eidlin, B. Retrieved from https://insight. kellogg. northwestern. edu /article/do-corporate-campaign-contributions-buy-influence Hazara. net, (2017). Political Science Quarterly, 132(1) Krieg, G. How did Trump Win? Here are 24 Theories. CNN. Retrieved from https:// edition.