What The Left Can Learn From Trump

Throughout the 2016 election, noted Marxist and hyperactive slob Slavoj Zizek routinely stated that when given the chance between Trump and Clinton, he would vote for Trump. Not because he supported anything Trump believed in (and was, in fact, horrified by him), but because he believed a Trump win would be the shock the American Left needed to break away from neoliberalism and rally for real change.

Looking at the state of things right now, it would seem he was at least half right. While the establishment/neoliberal Democrats are still at the forefront of the party, the Left is perhaps more organized *right now* than it has been in a long time.

Between mass protests, the flood of phone calls, and Bernie Sanders ongoing political revolution (a whole other story in its own right), the Left has the momentum they need to completely reshape the governmentfrom municipal to federalin 2018 and 2020.

Now, the obvious caveats here are whether or not the left can, A: keep the momentum, B: move further towards formal organization (rather than relying on a more decentralized structure, which was the poison pill for the occupy movement), and C: Find a way to appeal to rural America.

But if they hope to achieve, and sustain, any of those, the Left is going to have to think beyond emotional appeal and messaging and think critically about strategic mechanics, specifically when it comes to digital marketing and campaigning. This is the one area where the Trump campaign absolutely eviscerated Clinton, and its arguably the *actual* reason he won.

As Ive pointed out before , Trumps team ran an impressive, politically unorthodox digital campaign that eschewed traditional field offices and campaign tactics. Instead, they put their money towards big data and online marketing in order to reach the right people in the right place to give Trump the 270 he needed to win. Ironically enough, this strategy was lambasted as amateur and shortsighted.

Guess not.

As much as it hurts to say, the Left could learn a lot from Trumps digital strategy. That means less commercials, more Facebook ads. It means less yard signs, more Instagram content. Less phone banking, more user generated content. It means using big data to find out how people in different areas are consuming digital content, and then forming the message to fit.

Thats how you sustain a long-term movement in the 21st century. And really, with all the digital savvy millennials at the helm, theres no reason the Left cant capitalize on this type of strategy.