The Real Reason Trump Won

Since we're rapidly approaching inauguration day, and we've spent the last two and a half months being buried under analysis about how and why Donald Trump pulled off his presidential victory, now might be a good time to mention the one thing that--as yet, in all the coverage I've read on the subject--has yet to be mentioned. That would be the real reason that Trump won. Namely, this:

Trump won because he was the one with the hot blonde chick standing next to him.

Yes, of course, the election wasn't all about his daughter Ivanka. Everything that every commentator has mentioned to explain how and why Trump was able to pull off a win that is still being considered a monumental upset did in fact play its part. The economy and its discontents, the upheaval left by globalization, rising inequality, xenophobia, racism, fear-mongering, nativism, sexism, personal hatred of the Clintons, an incompetently run campaign by the Clintons--all of those elements had their impact on the electorate and worked to help (and, in some small instances, hurt) Donald Trump.

Then again, those same factors all worked upon Hillary Clinton's campaign, too; and while they had differing impacts on the Clinton campaign versus their impacts upon Trump's campaign, neither side was immune nor isolated from those influencing elements. Many things broke Trump's way, and it's quite possible that he would have won the election even if he had been a childless bachelor.

But do not discount the power of having a smoking hot blonde chick standing next to you.

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That influencing factor rested very much in Trump's corner, and Clinton had no counterpart benefiting her campaign.

Some reading this statement will beg to differ with the conclusion. Indeed, whenever anyone tries to make an argument about the influence of beauty on any field of endeavor, there will inevitably be a chorus of voices raising objections--and often, the disagreement rests upon general arguments that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and particular arguments that the subject in question is not, in fact, really all that good-looking.

It's nonsense, of course. By any realistic standard, Ivanka Trump is a very beautiful woman. That shouldn't be a controversial statement. After all, her mother was a model, and genes being what they are, one should not be surprised that Ivanka followed in mom's footsteps. Of course, you don't really need to resort to lineage and resume to judge her looks; Ivanka Trump passes the eye test for any reasonably mainstream and sane viewer.

However, politics being what it is, there will surely be a cohort of opposition partisans who will deny any statement that can be construed as complimentary towards those they see as their enemies. But I'm not one of them; despite my distrust--indeed, something near contempt--for her father, I remain rationally capable of judging that, according to most mainstream standards for the subject, Ivanka Trump is a beautiful young woman. And that young lady's beauty almost certainly had a big hand in moving at least some votes over to her father's side of the ledger.

We shouldn't kid ourselves; people are guided by their reactions to a person's looks all the time, in all of life's avenues. Beauty, particularly conventional beauty such as Ms. Trump possesses, has a very good track record when it comes to goading people into acting in one preferred fashion over another.  Studies have repeatedly shown that more attractive people make more money, have more success in their endeavors, that looks direct their belief systems, and--here's one that's just recently minted--even determine what their political inclinations are.

In almost any context, it's a big advantage to have good looks on your side; if you're in the political equivalent of a knife fight, bringing beauty onto your side can be the equivalent of showing up with a shotgun.

As still-mourning Clinton partisans will not hesitate to mention, the election was very close. Clinton won the popular vote thanks to heavy demographic advantages in the coastal states; but even the interior swing states were close enough that, if she had polled a little better in a couple of them, we'd be getting ready for the inauguration of the first female President of the United States right now.

How many of the votes that built Trump's winning margins in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania were solely attributable to the Rust Belt's economic deterioration? To racism? Xenophobia? It's hard to say. Nor is there any real way to quantify how many people--men, one assumes--walked into a voting booth and punched their card for Trump because, they reasoned, a vote in that direction would mean four more years of regular opportunities to get an eyeful of Ivanka Trump.

Consider this: Donald Trump may have been greatly helped out in his cause by those who were most vigorously opposed to him. For instance, having Trevor Noah on The Daily Show repeatedly joke that "Donald Trump wants to bang his daughter" may have done less to inform people about the presumed ickiness of their father-daughter relationship, and more to point out to those same people that Ivanka Trump really is pretty damn bang-able.

How many votes for Donald Trump were actually votes for getting more good looks at Ivanka Trump? For leering at Ivanka Trump? For jerking off while staring at a paused TV screen image of Ivanka Trump?

That idea may be unsavory to contemplate, but that doesn't mean it's not a real phenomenon. Remember, that's been the Fox News business plan since the channel's inception. Given all that went down in 2016--all of the absurdity, the shallowness, the crassness, the outright stupidity--can you really claim that nobody would actually cast a vote for so shallow a reason? I wouldn't want to bet on it.

This is not to say that Chelsea Clinton has anything in particular wrong with her. And, given the support for the Clinton campaign among the Hollywood community, there must have been at least a few actresses among the Clinton "surrogates" who could have matched Ivanka Trump in the looks department. But Clinton's campaign made poor use of that resource; however many beautiful people were on Clinton's side, they were never out as front-and-center as Ivanka was for the Trump campaign. Her eye-pleasing presence was clearly a part of the strategy employed by her father's campaign, and as a result he will be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States on Friday.

Going forward, we may see more and more of this sort of thing deciding elections. Are we really that close to living in the "beautocracy"? While rule by the beautiful may still be a long way from being codified, the influence of image, "optics," looks--whatever you want to call it--does not seem to be growing any less in our society. The chances are strong that, if anyone wants to unseat Donald Trump in four years, that person had better hit the campaign trail accompanied by someone who is absolutely stunning to look at. After all, we already know that Mr. Trump has just such a formidable weapon at his disposal.