Peter Thiel was right when he said that Trump supporters take him seriously, but not literally.

When it comes to reporting the news,  a presidential campaign and election is obviously news, the MSM (Main Stream Media) takes everything literally and seriously. That is the definition of reporting isn’t it ?

There are 10s of millions of voters who probably preferred  to consume literal information from MSM sources they trust and processed it before they decided which Presidential candidate they  voted for.

There are 10s of millions of voters who probably preferred to consume other, non MSM sources of information.  It’s not that they don’t want literal information. It’s that they don’t trust traditional reporting sources, aka, MSM, aka Main Stream Media.

I don’t know how or why they developed this distrust of the MSM. But they certainly did and still do. They not only distrust the MSM, they seem to feel strongly that the MSM is controlled by forces that are intentionally trying to discredit the things they believe strongly in.

Who do they trust for their information? Pretty much anyone and any outlet that recognizes and reveals the impurity of MSM outlets and reinforces the purity of their beliefs. It can be a neighbor, friend, relative, talk show host, website or information source, real or otherwise. It certainly was all the people who were at the rallys. You talk about creating a word of mouth network of support.  The rallys certainly succeeded there.

For the MSM literals, its “us vs them”, for the MSM haters , its “us vs them”

In this election there were more MSM “literals”, but the Trump campaign was a lot smarter and able to rally the MSM haters and turn them into Trump believers and voters in the states they needed them.

President Elect Trump won not because the media failed at their job or didn’t recognize something.  Donald Trump won precisely because the MSM did their job exactly as they expected they would and they used it to their advantage.

Every chance Donald got he would say things that his campaign knew would get the MSM all riled up. They knew exactly what they were doing. The more the media and people like me criticized Donald, the more it played right into their hands.  We were the bad guys. We didn’t get it.  We represented everything they wanted to change. We were the forces behind the corrupt media. The elites. The establishment. The suckers getting paid off by George Soros and foreign corrupt interests.

I was dumb enough to think I would be able to talk people out of voting for Donald Trump by detailing what I thought were his weaknesses. The Trump campaign had to be laughing at me and thanking me at the same time.  I approached my choice of candidates by consuming information literally.  That was my hammer and I tried to use it to make everything else look like a nail. I obviously was wrong.

Where Donald Trump was challenged, it wasn’t because of something he said on the campaign trail. It was something he said or did years ago. When there was hard evidence, it created question marks for even his staunchest supporters.  But for every hit he took, he was able to communicate to his followers that his opponent was far far worse than he ever could be.

She was a threat to their lives, their livelihood, their country.  It was clear to his supporters that he understood them and she was a threat. It was an easy choice to make. They both had issues. He could learn from his. She was a lying traitor that couldn’t be trusted and neither could anyone who supported her.  She would never be able to wash that off and be trusted and neither could the elites or special interests that wanted to help her take away his supporter’s liberties.

So here we are. We are going through a transition after which Donald Trump will be our President. Have I changed my mind about him ? Not yet. I’m willing to give him a chance. But I still don’t trust his temperament.  His tweets are risky in so many ways. That still concerns me. Bigly.

But he will be our President and I want him to succeed. But that isn’t the end of the story.  Recent history is repeating itself . As we speak.

The Trump team is once again brilliantly using MSM to their advantage.  They know that MSM will continue to be literal in their reporting, and the Trump transition team is grateful for it.

In looking at his actual and proposed appointments,  every one in the MSM, everyone who consumes their literal information from the MSM is freaking the fuck out.

Once again his voters are taking him seriously, but not literally. After all, he hasn’t taken office yet. How in the world does the MSM even know what is going to happen ? It’s just more confirmation that the MSM doesn’t get it. They don’t get us.  They are still out to get him and make him look bad. And when the MSM makes our President look bad, they make all of us that voted for him look bad. Which in turn makes his support from his voters even stronger.

When his transition team picked Flynn, Bannon, Sessions, they knew exactly how the MSM would react. They knew every single past issue each faced would surface.  From tweets to not being confirmed to breitbart news.  They could have picked any number of qualified candidates that didn’t carry that “baggage”.  But they chose them precisely because they had that baggage and of course because they were loyal to President Elect Trump.

Every bit of their histories  was  going to be taken literally and reported literally by the MSM.  And like in the campaign, I’m pretty sure that his supporters won’t care, a minority of his supporters will think of those issues as  positives,  and the Trump team will continue to be thankful for the MSM doing their jobs exactly how they expected them to.

It’s the perfect long-term setup for the new President and all those around him.  No matter what he does in office, unless it is demonstrably and verifiably dangerous to their way of life, the MSM media reporting on his Presidency is always going to be a plot against him.

They trust President Trump far, far more than they could ever trust anything the MSM says about him.  And they trust all the non MSM sources of information that again, unless there is something disastrous and undeniable, will say and write positive things about his Presidency.  What doesn’t work and isn’t disastrous is the fault of his predecessor and the establishment who continue to fill the swamp of DC and fight his every move. In fact, I would guess that they use all the negative articles during the transition as a way to convince those who didn’t vote for Trump, but may have been on the fence,as support for why they should support their new President.

The MSM doing their job is going to make President Donald Trump stronger than he was the day he was elected.

A couple more guesses and presumptions from my personal swamp:

1: My guess is that all the meetings with non-supporters are` “kiss the ring and kiss my ass meetings” and not true job interviews. Yes, there will be an exception or two. Or at least ones that look like they are a hiring of someone who didn’t support President Elect Trump’s campaign. But the reality of the situation is that it’s not about hiring those folks.They give the President Elect and his organization the chance to say “see, I was open minded. I talked to everyone. Whether I agreed with them or not. But even when  you try to  take the establishment out of the Swamp, you can’t take the swamp out of the establishment.

More importantly, they give President Elect Trump the satisfaction of watching those like me who campaigned vocally against him, bend over,  and kiss his ring.  Touche’ President Elect Trump. Touche’

2:  As I said, I am very, very nervous about what he might say or tweet.  But I do have some confidence that like everyone before him, the office will change him. The non stop onslaught of challenges will focus him. He won’t have the time, energy or inclination to tweet simply because he is too busy. That is my hope.

3: I do understand the fear the uncertainty is causing minorities. They are rightfully terrified. I know I would be. My suggestion is to use the fear so many are feeling as a way to raise money for groups that protect those minorities.  Hopefully those funds and groups won’t be necessary and the fears will end up unfounded.

4: In supporting Sec Clinton, there were policies of hers I agreed with and policies I disagreed with. The same will apply to what appears to be his expected policies.  Socially, there is plenty I disagree vehemently with the far right about. I’m not yet convinced that all of our President Elect’s NY Values are gone. We will see.

Economically, there are positives in his plan to borrow at hopefully what will still be effectively less than 0 percent interest.  I think if they can take this approach rather than an infrastructure bank, it will pay off nicely in growth for the economy. I also believe that reducing corporate income taxes is good. But I’m a believer that they should be closer  to the 22 – 25pct range. That makes us globally competitive and hopefully allows for more re-investment by companies.

Finally I hope he takes a page from Sec Clinton’s small business agenda.  All the paperwork required, along with the many different fees that every different level of local government charges a new company, makes starting a business too difficult and stupidly expensive.  All of which combined to crush the incentive for an individual to start their own business.

If you are good at a trade, its ridiculously expensive to go out on your own. Every start up should be as easy as starting up a lemonade stand and cheap, if not free. Sec Clinton proposed that federal funds be used to buy out the many local, county and state fees that crushed small startups and to work to unify and simplify the paperwork required. Hopefully the Trump administration will take a close look at this.

5: I’m tired. So apologize for the typos and whatever else.  I’ll circle back tomorrow and fix the many grammatical and spelling errors I’m sure I left behind

6. Feel free to hate on me in the comments. I learn from the thought out disagreements and improve my temper from the over the top hate.