[silpol]

(quote) "People in dictatorial regimes didn't get there by being quiet. They never were. Even today in places like Venezuela and Russia people take to the streets. They got there by losing a channel of communication to their fellow citizens." -- you are clearly out of sync with reality about Russia. Since 2011 protests, Russian regime jails people even at "single person protest" which are always legal by their law, leave alone cases like Bolotnaya. NGOs are pushed into fed-by-govt-or-illegal mode. Political opponents either went into govt-is-right mode or expelled. Mind you, it is not dictatorial, it is only authoritarian. But it is toxic enough. And we haven't even started yet about DT going to hug with Putin asap once he is in chair. Did I mention that almost whole Republican party is in love Putin's image and strong arm behavior? Thank you but your ideas are out of sync with reality.

[wahern]

And yet by every measure Putin remains incredibly popular, even when measured by foreign, non-biased organizations. Just as was Hugo Chavez.

So how are my ideas out of sync with reality? The only thing out-of-sync with reality is doubling-down on the same strategies that lost over the past two years of intense political campaigning.

Policies do not make the candidate. Ultimately, voters elect a person, not a set of abstract policies. Policies _should_ make the candidate, and we _should_ endeavor to nurture a culture where policies matter.

But, alas, in the current environment somebody like Trump is thriving. Like Putin, he thrives _despite_ the fact that clear (though distinct) majorities reject almost every one of his concrete policies. (The exception being national defense, where more is always better and voters don't care much about the details.) And he'll likely follow Putin's pattern--openly promise one thing, do something else when nobody is looking, then deflect criticism using traditional propaganda techniques--promises were "just rhetoric", implemented policies are "misconstrued" and "ill-informed", and... look, squirrel!

Given the cult of personality (Trump the star, Trump the vehicle for rejecting the established order), the way to win is diminish support for the personality. You do that not by attacking policies directly, but by attacking policies in such a way that they expose the personality as a fraud. Those are truly two different things. The latter isn't focused on the rightness or wrongness of policy (always a debatable point), but rather in showing that Trump doesn't actually have voters' interests at heart; you show that Trump is a poor vehicle for reform.