Trump’s Popularity Before the Election.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-apprentice-paved-way-for-donald-trump-presidential-campaign-2016-11
A big portion of this article is dedicated to explaining that Donald Trump’s support throughout the election has a lot to do with the fact that he had a television show prior to the election. It was called The Apprentice, and it was very popular. Some of the major contributions to his support during the election were some of the lies told on the show. One in particular that is mentioned in the article is that Trump claimed he was the “largest real estate developer in New York”. People believed it, and had this successful impression of him, because at the time they had no reason not to. Another aspect of the show that helped his campaign and popularity was that he is perceived as a caring man who wanted to make lives better.
Now fast forward to the election. Basically every speech that has been uttered by Trump makes him appear as an arrogant and careless white supremacist. Why was he able to surpass all of his competitors? The answer is his popularity and impressions from his television show. This is a model of the “rich get richer” dynamic, where Trump started out in the presidential race much more popular than his competitors. Rich get richer refers to how the probability of something increasing in popularity relates to its current popularity. As a result of his previous popularity, his chances of becoming more popular in the presidential race were significantly higher than his competitors. During debates, all eyes were always on Trump, wanting to see what he’d say or do. Without his previous popularity, no one would have taken him seriously, and would have dismissed him as an unfit candidate. However, this was not the case, and now he is the president-elect.