Trump is Elvis, Hillary is New Coke, and Bernie is the Backup QB

So, I was in a meeting earlier this week when the subject of discussion turned to analogies for the remaining political candidates.   This is a good discussion, because to a large extent it explains where we are in this race.

I’ve already written about my analogy for Bernie Sanders:  he’s the backup quarterback.  Right now, he’s the most popular of the three remaining major party candidates, according to the national polling data, just as the backup QB is always the most popular player on a football team with an under-performing starter.

But, like the backup QB, Bernie is popular because he has been largely unexamined.  He has essentially no chance to win, so neither the media nor the voters have spent much time analyzing what it really means to be a socialist.  Just as the fans inevitably cringe and stop cheering so loudly as soon as a backup QB gets on the field and demonstrates why he wasn’t the starter to begin with, so would the voters cringe were Bernie to actually become the nominee and they were forced to face the reality of exactly who he is.

My favorite analogy for Hillary Clinton is that she is just like “New Coke”.  You millennials won’t be familiar with this, but you can Google it for yourselves rather than have me explain was New Coke was.  Those of you who were cogent human beings in the early 1980s will remember the introduction of New Coke by the Coca Cola Bottling Company.  New Coke had a slightly different taste than Coca Cola, and it has this behemoth organization behind it spending tens of millions of dollars trying to convince the consuming public that they should love it and indeed be very excited about it.

The problem was, the more any normal human being tasted New Coke, the less they liked it.  This is Hillary Clinton in a nutshell.

Like New Coke, Hillary has this gigantic organization behind her spending tens of millions of dollars every week in an attempt to convince the voting public that they should love her and indeed be very excited about the opportunity to enjoy four years of her in the White House.  The problem with Hillary is, the more any normal human being becomes exposed to her, the less they like her.

Most politicians crave public and media attention and grow more popular with increasing exposure to both.  Hillary Clinton is exactly the opposite:  the more media and public attention she gets, the less popular she becomes.  This is nothing new – it has always been the case with her.

This is why the Democrat National Committee did everything it could to ensure Ms. Clinton would not have to endure any sort of truly contested race for the nomination.  They all knew it was vitally important to keep Hillary out of the public eye as much as possible throughout the campaign.   

Because the “idea” of Hillary – the U.S. is long overdue for its first female president, after all - is an idea that appeals to millions of Americans.  But the reality of Hillary, her unlikable personality, her fealty to all manner of far-leftwing causes, her obvious, blatant criminal activities over the last 35 years, and all the other baggage she brings along with her (including a big ol’ bag named Bill) is amazingly unappealing.

New Coke ultimately failed and disappeared from the shelves simply because the public, having been exposed to the reality of it, simply did not like it.  The same is likely to become true for Hillary.

Many people like to draw an analogy between Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, but I don’t like that one.  While it is true that the circumstances of their respective races are similar in some ways, the two could not be more un-alike from a personal standpoint.

No, my favorite analogy for Trump is that he is a lot like Elvis Presley was in 1956.  When he appeared shaking his hips and singing this new-fangled rock ‘n roll music on the Ed Sullivan Show in September of that year, Elvis was a shock to the national system.  Many people in “proper” society thought he should be banned and his music should be banned with him.  Some even believed he was the anti-Christ (I’m not kidding). 

But Elvis had the exact opposite progression with the public that New Coke had:  the more he was exposed to the public, the less shocking he became as the public became acclimated to this new form of music and performance artist.  Within a year, lots of rock musicians were shaking their hips on Ed Sullivan, and teenagers were shaking their own hips on Saturdays on American Bandstand.  By then, no one thought Elvis was the anti-Christ, and no one feared the world was going to come to an end, and indeed, many of those teenagers’ parents were playing his albums in their living rooms.

This kind of progression, from an initial shock to the societal system to a gradual but steady acceptance and ultimate endorsement, is exactly what we have seen and continue to see where Trump is concerned.  True, the lunatic Glen Beck still thinks Trump is the anti-Christ, but no one else does.  Just three months ago, comparisons of Trump to Hitler were ubiquitous in the traditional and social media.  Think: when was the last time you saw that comparison made?

The hair is a lot different and you wouldn’t want to listen to him sing “Jailhouse Rock”, but Trump is Elvis, Hillary’s New Coke, and Bernie is and will always remain the backup QB.