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The Simple Secret of Trump’s Supreme Political Confidence: Old-Fashioned Fan Mail


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2019 Oct 29, 10:09pm   123 views  1 comment

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

https://quillette.com/2019/10/29/the-simple-secret-of-trumps-supreme-political-confidence-old-fashioned-fan-mail/

They were filled with letters. Dozens, scores, hundreds of letters. Cohen told me heaps of letters arrived in the mail every day, sent by strangers from all over the country, and that Trump’s secretarial team collected, sorted and organized them into binders. Some were handwritten; some included checks, or five- or ten-dollar bills, or small mementos. All beseeched Trump to run for president.

Cohen flipped through the pages of plastic-encased correspondence, reading aloud from particularly heartwarming, impassioned or resonant missives. You HAVE to run…America needs you…My children’s future depends on it…The career politicians will never fix our problems. Cohen’s face was alight with devotion, urgency, pride. Idly, I wondered if the letters were genuine. Perhaps they had been generated by a team of underpaid foreign workers; or by the Trump Organization administrative staff; or by Cohen himself, laboring as if over an elementary-school art project, with floral stationery, scratch pads, postcards, inkwells, ballpoint pens and typewriters from eBay set out before him.

But the language in these letters was genuine, the words evocative. Many of the letters echoed the message Trump had delivered at CPAC and other venues. There were citizens all over the country, a significant portion of the electorate, who were struggling, grievously unhappy and afraid. They were in trouble, and they thought America was in trouble, too. They had seen this man on television, this man who had so much confidence and so many glib answers, and they wanted him to go to Washington and set things right.

When politicians are deliberating over joining a presidential race, it is common for them to boast that a diverse array of Americans is encouraging them to run. While there is often truth to this claim, the appeals usually come from staff, close friends and loyal donors who have offered regular support over the years.

Cohen’s binders of letters, the outpouring of promises and pleas, were perhaps unprecedented in modern times. The people who wrote to Trump nearly a decade ago would be disappointed when he announced in May, 2011 that he would not be entering the 2012 presidential race. “This decision does not come easily or without regret,” said Trump in a statement, “especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country. I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election.”

Four years later, those binders of letters, I believe, helped inspire Trump to make his victorious bid for the White House. They served as more than an ego stroke, more than the typical fan blandishments dashed off to a reality TV star. They were a tangible sign that the people were waiting for him. Despite the media mockery, despite the dubious mutterings and nervous sneers from the Republican Party, the letters in those binders were the start of something bigger than a campaign. They were the start of a movement.

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1   FuckTheMainstreamMedia   2019 Oct 30, 11:55am  

I may have to write him a thank you letter some day

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