Is Donald Trump a Media Genius or Fool

One of the most frequent questions I'm receiving from clients, colleagues, friends, family these days is, what do I think of Donald Trump and his use of the media? You may have noticed I'm not commenting on every little snafu, every big blow up of the day for a lot of reasons. For one reason, there's not that much new to say from a pure communications crisis communications standpoint. Donald Trump consistently says things that many, many people find outrageous, ridiculous, beyond the pale. He's condemned by people all across the political spectrum, insiders, outsiders, party leaders, members of the media. And what we've seen in the last year is every time this happens, he seems to gain in popularity. So everything he's doing is outside the normal bounds and the normal understanding of how the media world works and crisis communications works. The other big problem, frankly, is if I say anything bad about him or good about Hillary, or bad about Hillary, I get a lot of hate mail from all of you who think that I'm trying to advocate political positions. And that's not the role of this podcast, that's not the role of this YouTube channel. It's really to talk about the art and craft and skill of communication. So I'd be honest, I do find it difficult to talk about Trump because he's so, for that matter, Hillary Clinton, because it's so polarizing that you get instant hate mail for people who want to talk about things that are just not the focus of this show and this podcast. I will. I mean, there's no such thing as someone being unbiased. I try to give you information that is through the lens of what is good and bad communication as opposed to my own personal political beliefs. But everybody has political opinions and political beliefs. I'm no different. I will confess to you, I don't really understand how Donald Trump's approval ratings now and support level isn't at 5%, as opposed to the 40 or so percent he has. As I create this commentary, Hillary Clinton has just a few points above him in national polls, and that may be because her convention was just last week and Trump's was two weeks ago. By all accounts, right now, it appears to be a very close election, even though one candidate is violating every single traditional norm of what is effective communication. I will weigh in on this issue from time to time. But at some point, just talking about how Donald Trump has said something wildly inflammatory and is a big gaffe and is a big crisis doesn't seem to be true because it's typically not been a crisis for a campaign. It's been his way of communicating with supporters and gaining more support. So the rules are different. We'll certainly have an extended, extended post election analysis of this. I know I will. A lot of other people will, but in real time, it's hard to get an accurate sense of what's really going on. Just being transparent with you folks. I'd love to hear your opinions on this, but I'm really not interested in you telling me your political views of why you. Well, let's just focus on communication aspects, if we could. So post your comments on YouTube, Facebook, iTunes, wherever you are hearing or seeing this program. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me.