Republican Strategy
Republicans trying to drum up support for the Iraq War claimed that people who did not support it were in support of Islamic terrorists. They used imagery to depict the "otherness" of those terrorists, which then of course spilled over into all Middle Eastern people being grouped with this fringe element. Republicans have long known, and been successful at, using imagery and symbolism to promote their causes.
Trump and Reality TV
Richardson writes of Trump's entrance onto the political scene that he was more "image than substance" (84). Indeed, Trump used spectacle, chicanery, legerdemain, and more to promote himself. He knew how to utilize the television to put his image out there, and he knew how to appeal to those television viewers. He promoted himself as a successful, elite businessman with a beautiful wife and sycophantic children who could turn anything he touched into gold. Viewers ate it up but it was barely the truth.
Hacking Away
Richardson writes that the Republicans had been "hacking away" at the liberal consensus for over fifty years, which is an effective image because it portrays them as violent, maybe a little unhinged, as they go after something that is firmly rooted in American government and politics.
Gaslighting
Richardson provides the origins of a word many people know now—gaslighting—in order to show one of the reasons why Trump has been successful. She writes of the film Gaslight, and how a husband tries to convince his wife she is not seeing the lights in the house that he has been secretly manipulating in order to get her to go crazy so he can take over her fortune. Trump also tells people they're seeing things that aren't there in order to make them doubt their sanity.
