TRUMP

118 ANATOMY OF A MONSTROSITY
But Trump did the opposite. He trivialized a war veteran’s service,
suggesting that John McCain being tortured made John McCain a
loser, because winners don’t get themselves caught and tortured. Yet
by doubling down and refusing to budge, Trump somehow managed
to escape consequence.
The McCain incident was an early indicator that politics worked
differently for Donald Trump than for everyone else. He could get
away with more, because upsetting people was part of his appeal. By
pitching himself as the one willing to offend people’s sensibilities, and
say outrageous things, Trump simultaneously kept the attention on
himself and caused certain sectors of the American electorate to think
“Well, I may not agree with everything Trump says, but I love that he’s
his own man and doesn’t get pushed around.” Trump realized that in
a certain sense, the more outrageous he was, the better.
Throughout the early months, pundits continued not to have any
idea what to make of Donald Trump. But from the very beginning,
there was good reason to believe that Trump would end up the nominee.
Immediately after entering the race, Trump rose to the top of
polls, and before the first Republican debate, he was already in the
lead. By the end of the summer of 2015, the New York Times reported
that Trump’s support was not just a mirage or press hype, but that
Trump actually had a serious base among Republican voters:
[Aides to other Republican candidates] have drawn comfort
from the belief that Donald J. Trump’s dominance in
the polls is a political summer fling, like Herman Cain
in 2011 — an unsustainable boomlet dependent on
megawatt celebrity, narrow appeal and unreliable surveys
of Americans with a spotty record of actually voting
in primaries. A growing body of evidence suggests that
may be wishful thinking. A review of public polling,
extensive interviews with a host of his supporters in two