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+--- Thread: Research Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) (/thread-19679.html)
Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - C C - Jan 26, 2026
New research reveals the policy recall gap that gave Donald Trump a hidden edge
https://www.psypost.org/new-research-reveals-the-policy-recall-gap-that-gave-donald-trump-a-hidden-edge/
EXCERPTS: Recent research into the 2016 United States presidential election offers insights into how effective the two major campaigns were at informing voters.
The study, published in American Politics Research, suggests that Donald Trump’s campaign was more successful than Hillary Clinton’s campaign at communicating memorable policy proposals that voters believed would personally benefit them. These findings indicate that the ability of a campaign to implant specific policy ideas in the minds of the electorate may be a significant factor in election outcomes.
Political scientists often debate the extent to which political campaigns actually influence voters. A common perspective in the field is that campaigns have minimal effects on voter attitudes or their ultimate choice at the ballot box. However, the 2016 election presented a unique set of circumstances that warranted a closer examination of this conventional wisdom.
The distinct styles of the two candidates provided a natural experiment in communication strategies. Hillary Clinton ran a more traditional campaign that often focused on the character and fitness of her opponent. Donald Trump utilized a strategy characterized by simple, repetitive slogans and unconventional policy promises.
[...] This disparity became even more pronounced when the researchers broke the data down by partisanship. Political parties generally rely on their own base to know and support their platform.
The study found that 79 percent of Republicans were able to articulate a policy-related reason to support Trump. On the Democratic side, only 62 percent of respondents could name a policy-related reason to support Clinton. A significant portion of the Democratic base—nearly four out of ten—could not identify a single policy from their nominee that they felt would improve their lives.
The researchers also examined the relationship between education levels and policy recall. Typically, political science research finds that higher levels of education correlate with higher levels of political knowledge. The results regarding Hillary Clinton followed this expected pattern. Respondents with higher educational attainment were more likely to name a beneficial Clinton policy than those with less education.
The results regarding Donald Trump did not follow this traditional pattern. The data showed no significant relationship between a respondent’s level of education and their ability to name a Trump policy.
Voters with lower levels of formal education were just as likely to recall a Trump promise as those with college degrees. This suggests that Trump’s communication style may have successfully bypassed the cognitive barriers that often make political platforms difficult for some voters to absorb... (MORE - details)
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Peeples - Jan 26, 2026
The title seems to be suggesting something slightly different than the research paper.
The title is about communication style, whereas the research paper was about policy recall.
There's obviously overlap - communication can help people remember even rubbish policies - but there's also the undistributed middle: what if the lack of recall of Clinton's policies were simply because the policies were crap?
One has to remember that this election was after 8 years of a Democratic President. Clinton was basically just a continuation of that. So her policies were nothing particularly exciting or radical because everything was pretty much in place.
Trump, otoh, was coming in to disrupt, so everything he said, whether truthful or not, was aimed at saying how bad the incumbent is and how he will change everything, lying his ass off along the way, and throughout the next 4 years.
Clinton couldn't exactly say "Oh, the current Democrat President is awful, we need to massively change everything they're doing, scrap Obamacare, scrap all his policies..." etc.
Now, I do think communication style was significant, but on the matter of policy recall there is other reason for the observed disparity. But communication style is not the same as communication content.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - confused2 - Jan 26, 2026
Americans seem somewhat divided between "Very little of what Trump says is true" and "Everything Trump says is absolutely true". Does Trump have the ability to alter (some) peoples perception of truth - as of charismatic leader?
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - stryder - Jan 26, 2026
I'm pretty sure it's just down to straight up brainwashing. Say something enough times and it sticks.
Why people don't remember old policies is simple, we live in the here and now and look towards a future.
If we get wrapped up in the past, we miss whats going on around us.
I can't wait to not even remember forgetting Trumps policies.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Syne - Jan 26, 2026
Most of what Trump says is off the cuff opinion, but morons always assume they're statement of fact.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - C C - Jan 26, 2026
(Jan 26, 2026 09:46 AM)Peeples Wrote: The title seems to be suggesting something slightly different than the research paper.
The title is about communication style, whereas the research paper was about policy recall...
Welcome to the Scivillage, Peeples.
From the paper's abstract: "The relatively high rates of respondents’ ability to name a Trump policy that would make them better off suggests that the success of his campaign can be partly attributed to its ability to communicate memorable information."
From the article: "This suggests that Trump’s communication style may have successfully bypassed the cognitive barriers that often make political platforms difficult for some voters to absorb."
Now whether the paper itself is compromised by invalid science problems, AI fraud, publish or perish, poor conclusions and biased interpretations of data, etc is a different matter. Much of the social sciences today have become a cesspool in that respect. But one can't post everything released from human-related research territory under pseudoscience and junk science. There's still a pervasive pretense across the establishment that the overall output is half-reliable or means something. So there's that classic momentum still lingering.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Peeples - Jan 26, 2026
(Jan 26, 2026 07:22 PM)Syne Wrote: Most of what Trump says is off the cuff opinion, but morons always assume they're statement of fact.
If he was still just the guy in The Apprentice, everyone would pretty much agree that what he says is an opinion, and that everyone is entitled to one. And everyone would laugh at him. But, as POTUS, what he says can not just be held to be opinion. When he says "we must have Greenland for national security" and threatens to go in with military force, for example, he has to be taken seriously, and he has to be taken literally, until such time as those apologists around him come up with something more palatable by way of explanation, or until he says something that rows it back.
Think of it this way: they're not taking Donald Trump seriously, they're taking the President of the US seriously, as one always should. Unfortunately the former is also the latter.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Syne - Jan 26, 2026
(Jan 26, 2026 07:48 PM)Peeples Wrote:(Jan 26, 2026 07:22 PM)Syne Wrote: Most of what Trump says is off the cuff opinion, but morons always assume they're statement of fact.
If he was still just the guy in The Apprentice, everyone would pretty much agree that what he says is an opinion, and that everyone is entitled to one. And everyone would laugh at him. But, as POTUS, what he says can not just be held to be opinion. When he says "we must have Greenland for national security" and threatens to go in with military force, for example, he has to be taken seriously, and he has to be taken literally, until such time as those apologists around him come up with something more palatable by way of explanation, or until he says something that rows it back.
Think of it this way: they're not taking Donald Trump seriously, they're taking the President of the US seriously, as one always should. Unfortunately the former is also the latter.
Nah, people who hate Trump just can't be bothered to steelman what he says and try to distinguish between his off the cuff opinions and impressions and statements of fact. I haven't seen another other president held to this ridiculous standard that everything they say must be fact.
And Trump, even prior to being president, always negotiated using the same tactic. A "big ask" followed by pressure to bring people to the table. He even wrote a book about it, so it's not like it's a secret or something. But you'd have to steelman and have a little discernment to understand that.
Just because you may be literal-minded doesn't mean everyone needs to accommodate you, by always being 100% literal. 9_9
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Peeples - Jan 26, 2026
(Jan 26, 2026 07:54 PM)Syne Wrote: Nah, people who hate Trump just can't be bothered to steelman what he says and try to distinguish between his off the cuff opinions and impressions and statements of fact. I haven't seen another other president held to this ridiculous standard that everything they say must be fact.It's only since Trump first came to power that we even have the term "alternative facts".
And Trump, even prior to being president, always negotiated using the same tactic. A "big ask" followed by pressure to bring people to the table. He even wrote a book about it, so it's not like it's a secret or something. But you'd have to steelman and have a little discernment to understand that.
Just because you may be literal-minded doesn't mean everyone needs to accommodate you, by always being 100% literal. 9_9
But, heck, apologists will do what apologists will do.
RE: Trump's communication style gave him an edge over rivals (old election data analysis) - Syne - Jan 26, 2026
(Jan 26, 2026 08:34 PM)Peeples Wrote:(Jan 26, 2026 07:54 PM)Syne Wrote: Nah, people who hate Trump just can't be bothered to steelman what he says and try to distinguish between his off the cuff opinions and impressions and statements of fact. I haven't seen another other president held to this ridiculous standard that everything they say must be fact.It's only since Trump first came to power that we even have the term "alternative facts".
And Trump, even prior to being president, always negotiated using the same tactic. A "big ask" followed by pressure to bring people to the table. He even wrote a book about it, so it's not like it's a secret or something. But you'd have to steelman and have a little discernment to understand that.
Just because you may be literal-minded doesn't mean everyone needs to accommodate you, by always being 100% literal. 9_9
But, heck, apologists will do what apologists will do.
Yes, leftists coined the term because the refuse to understand, or simply steelman, anything Trump says.
No one here's saying he's always right, even in his opinions or policies. But I can see why some people would want to make it a binary.