Evaluating Google Trends, Candidate Likability, and Virtue Signaling

First off, I find it hilarious that “Hillary for prison shirt” is getting more searches than “Hillary bumper sticker”. The fact that Hillary can hardly get people to organically search for her merchandise should be a pretty telling sign that the general population really has no support for Hillary Clinton. The one thing that we know for certain is that not many people are buying her shit.

Trump may be destroying Hillary in merchandise and slogan searches, but what other search terms could help indicate a Trump landslide? Before I move on to that, I just want you to take a look at the line graph for slogan searches. Hillary’s low energy, “I’m with Her” slogan has barely seen a blip of growth compared to Make America Great Again.

Source:  Google Trends Indicate Trump Landslide  |  Regated

Whether you hate him or love him, the fever pitch surrounding Trump’s Presidential campaign has been absolutely phenomenal.  If you take a look at Regated’s article, they point out many other Google search trends that show the astounding interest in Trump’s campaign.  And the interest is highest in pro-Trump searches, not from the haters.  Just as importantly, they show a shocking lack of interest in the campaign of Hillary Clinton, with her highest search parameter being lower than Trump’s 3rd highest, and her 2nd highest search parameter being “Hillary for prison”.  And all of this is in spite of her high probability of winning the election, even after her perceived success among oddsmakers following the first presidential debate.

This is even more astounding when you consider how substantially Hillary has out-fundraised and outspent Trump.  Trump has spent far less than most recent Presidential candidates, spending less than 19% of Hillary’s on both placed media and ad buys in August.  Yet, Trump has still been able to dominate the airwaves and media discussion, even when most of the MSM coverage is against him.  Salient Partners wrote an excellent article discussing the “Virtue Signaling” going on within the Clinton campaign at the moment; I highly recommend you read it.  To simply the concept of “virtue signaling” as it applies to the Clinton campaign, it almost feels as though the individuals within the campaign are engaging in self-serving activities to cover their own asses should Hillary lose.  An excerpt:

I was in Los Angeles last week, and the Clinton anti-Trump TV ads were in heavy rotation. It’s not because the Clinton campaign is worried about the California vote, because if they were then the election would already be irredeemably lost. No, the ads are being run in the metro LA area so that Clinton supporters (and donors!) can feel good about themselves. It’s like throwing a massively expensive dinner party to congratulate yourself for all the money you’ve raised to feed the poor.

Virtue signaling is a behavior that visibly demonstrates the individual qualities of the player to some external audience, whether or not it improves the chances of the team to win.

Trump has successfully tapped into the same populist wave that made Bernie Sanders so popular, albeit from the other side of the political aisle.  Though his initial appeal came as a political outsider, everything about him, whether you like him or hate him, was what catapulted him to the top of the Republican field.  The only time Hillary can seem to get her name into the discussion is when someone is discussing the latest in one of her many scandals, or querying her health as a potential disqualifier.  She is about as inspiring as a candidate as Bob Dole, as Bernie Sanders rallies were far louder and filled with much more enthusiasm for the candidate.  She is just generic and uninspiring in comparison to Trump, and nowhere is this more evident than the Google search trends.

It is an incredible sight to witness, as not only has Trump been getting extensive media coverage of his own for next to nothing, the Clinton campaign is being frivolous with their large sums of capital for the worst of reasons.  Even though Hillary still will have far more money to spend, Trump has wisely saved the majority of his funding for an ad blitz in the month of October.  Trump has been able to counteract Hillary’s substantially larger campaign war chest by manipulating the media, and using his own brash behavior to dominate the airwaves.  No matter what your opinion is on Trump, everyone always wants to talk about the latest thing he did or said on the campaign trail.  Return of Kings brilliantly characterized Trump’s manipulation of the media, comparing his overall successes and mastery of media to his ability to date attractive women.  An excerpt:

Last week, Donald Trump used the whole “Birther” controversy, not adding any comment on the issue but tipping a journalist that “they had to keep the suspense going,” letting them craving for more information.

It brought the media in droves to witness what he had say during his Washington conference, hoping for a juicy statement that they could then exploit against him. They all eagerly turned up but the whole event was entirely focus on Donald’s support from veterans, Medal of Honor winners and retired flag officers.

Through this, he managed to bring the spotlight on the unfair treatment of veterans under the Obama administration, a cause that does not interest America’s traditional media.

Nothing was said about the whole “Birther” issue and the coyotes of the mainstream media left enraged and empty handed. In the words of CNN, it was one of the first, if not the first, political RIck Roll. Just like with women, anticipation was cultivated and brought to climax before the coup de grâce.

Donald Trump… The “King” of Media

The ability to dominate discussion is also something that comes naturally to the other recent Democratic Presidents, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.  They are both not only extremely likeable, they are masterful politicians and public speakers.  Bill Clinton was so astute at maneuvering his way out of political jams that he got the nickname “Slick Willie”, after all.  Barack Obama had and still has his “Yes We Can” and “Hope And Change” slogans, and overcome an extremely sluggish economy to win a 2nd term, with a substantial turnout in his re-election.  Meanwhile, Hillary’s “I’m With Her” slogan is hardly mentioned, and it almost feels as though more of the slogan’s mentions come from Trump supporters denigrating Hillary. 

And, no matter how you feel about Bill and Obama, when voters went to the polls, they wanted to vote FOR, and believed in, the candidate they were pulling the lever for.  Though the same can’t necessarily be said about Trump, his campaign draws crowds, excitement, and discussion, and the people who are packing out his rallies and going to the polls for him genuinely believe in him as a political outsider and in his platform, whether you agree with them or not.  On the other side of that coin, Hillary’s campaign rallies can barely fill a room, even in districts she is expected to dominate, and camera tricks are needed to make the rallies seem larger.

Most importantly, the majority of her voters aren’t really voting for her, as much as they are voting for Trump, hence the popularity of the “Never Trump” slogan.  While I don’t recall anyone I know having a Hillary for President sign on their lawn, the popularity of Trump/Pence signs is again manifest in the Google search trends.  They are so commonplace in some areas, haters are having a field day vandalizing and removing them, while simultaneously terrorizing the neighborhood.

This is the big problem that faces Hillary as a candidate – she simply can never dominate discussion in the way that Trump can.  Despite facing an extremely weak platform of candidates on both sides of the aisle, she is far from a lock to win the election.  While her odds for victory are still substantially higher than Trump’s, if you said Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for President one year ago, you would have been laughed out of the room.  The DNC will only have themselves to blame if Trump wins, as Sanders was a far better, more popular candidate with far less baggage.  Meanwhile, Trump’s domination of discussion, in hate as well as love, can be seen everywhere, from MSM bashing of him, to his many supporters, and it is all manifest profoundly in Google search trends.  Trump, somehow,  has a real shot to win, and I’m so dumbfounded by it, I’m stuck leaving you with a bit I saw on Twitter about Hillary’s candidacy:

>Be Hillary

>Be former Secretary of State

>Be wife of former POTUS

>Current POTUS is shilling for her

>All living former POTUS’ are on her side

>MSM is shilling for her day and night

>Billionaires (Soros, Buffett, Bloomberg, and many others) are spending their fortunes to get her into the oval office

>Her party did all sorts of crooked things to get her the nomination

>An Army of idiots are waging a war for her on the internet

>Even the FBI is setting their asses on fire to save her

>>STILL CAN’T MAINTAIN A LEAD OVER THE ORANGE FACED IDIOT FROM THE APPRENTICE

Hillary is probably the worst candidate in history.  Why are people even considering her?