Trump is having a difficult re-election campaign because he lacks ethos--credibility--in a way that he didn't in 2016. In 2016 a lot of Americans thought of Trump as a successful businessman who would run the nation like a business. Experience now shows he wasn't that guy.
Credibility is important in persuasion because people trust speakers who they believe are knowledgeable and who have good will in communicating what they know to the audience/electorate. Trump hasn't cared about his credibility.
You build credibility with an electorate--it's a long-term strategy of proving yourself to be a trustworthy source of information, with good intentions. You build credibility by providing useful & accurate information over time.
Trump's strategy has been to do the opposite. His is a short-term anti-credibility strategy. He only cares about winning the day. He wants to control the nation's agenda. He doesn't care about building a relationship. He just tells us "trust me" & punishes folks who question him.
It's a bizarre strategy for a president, but it's what you would expect from a demagogue.
"Flooding the zone with shit" or the "firehose of propaganda" model isn't a credibility building strategy. It's a strategy to avoid accountability. Guess what? credibility requires accountability. Bad luck for a demagogue (an unaccountable leader).
Because he lacks credibility he has to "win" the election by cheating, he can't win it by persuasion.
also, @brianstelter this ^^ reminds me of what you've been saying about Trump just trying to win the day--the long term consequences of that strategy aren't good for him.
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