Do you remember the Zune? I barely do.
Do you remember the iPod? Silly question.
The iPod changed everything.
While the Zune was technically superior in nearly every way to the iPod, the iPod became a phenomenon.
Why? Because Apple focused on how the iPod made your life better.
In marketing there is something called “The Chasm.” It’s an idea put forth by Geoffrey Moore in the early 90’s. Getting 16% market share is easy. There are nearly always one in six people who are willing to adopt the new or different thing.
But, to become a social phenomenon that ‘new thing’ has to ‘cross the chasm’ by shifting the marketing message from its newness superiority to why this ‘new thing’ will make your life better.
The message has to appeal to people’s sense of shared experience and community. And if that shift is successful your product or message will ‘cross the chasm’ and begin to see mass adoption.
For that shift to win out conditions have to be right and the message aligned perfectly with it.
If you do your new thing will explode in the public consciousness literally overnight.
Look at how quickly Jordan Peterson has blown up.
Conditions were right for people to receive his message. And all it took was for the right moment him to stand up to a virulent ideologue like Kathy Newman of the BBC to become a hero to millions.
The First Black President
So, what does all this 16% Chasm stuff have to do with Donald Trump?
After all, he crossed the chasm and won the presidency.
But the chasm Trump needed to cross was a demographic one. Minorities, specifically black voters. And because he did, nothing about our electoral politics will ever be the same.
Rasmussen released a bombshell report on Friday stating that Trump’s support among black voters is now a whopping 36%.
This versus 19% a year ago.
Now, Rasmussen skews Republican in his sampling like Gallup skews Democrat, so lop 3-5% off both of those numbers, the margin of error. Go back to Trump’s polling with black voters just a few months ago and you’ll see numbers in the 17% range.
Today 36%. That, my friends, is crossing the chasm in a big way.
And it’s typical. Italy’s Northern League ‘crossed the chasm’ in January and doubled support in six months.
So, now the question is what caused this? What changed?
In my mind it was Kanye West. Yes, Kanye West’s “Seven Words that Changed Everything” made it acceptable for millions of black voters to see Trump differently.
Conditions were ripe. The Democrats were going to places unacceptable to most people – insane, intersectionalism, calling everyone a racist, extreme gun control, censorship, etc.
It didn’t hurt that things have improved quickly under Trump for Black Americans. We’ve all seen the statistics – lowest unemployment in decades, rising wages, etc.
But, that’s not “crossing the chasm” material. What is is controlling immigration, the crackdown on drug trafficking and tax reform.
Then Kanye met with Trump at the White House and Kanye’s new album sold like bottles of water in the middle of the desert. And people thirsting for a little truth got a red-pill to go along with that bottle.
The reaction to Kanye was predictable and offensive to many people.
The End of Race-Baiting
I live in rural North Florida among hard-working, family oriented, church-going black families and I can tell you none of these people voted for Hillary.
These people aren’t looking for handouts, they are looking for someone to get out of their way.
And they have even less patience for the insane spectacle the Democrats are putting on about Trump’s supposed foibles than the white people who voted for him.
Kanye’s support of Trump was the Battle of the Bulge in the Culture War with Marxism. He punctured all their myths. He rubbed their noses in their smugness.
And he led black people by example.
While the race-baiters shamed themselves and their brethren.
I said back in June when it happened to my newsletter subscribers it would permanently fracture the fragile coalition of the Democratic Party.
And it has.
Trump stole the Union vote back in 2016, now he’s stealing the minorities. By the time the mid-terms are over, he’ll have solidified the rest of the centrists.
This will leave the Democrats as a permanent underclass in U.S. electoral politics for the next generation.
This is why Omarosa is out there making a fool of herself this week. She was activated to staunch the bleeding.
It’s why they doubled down on “Trump is a Traitor” post-Helsinki because they knew these poll numbers were shifting quickly against them.
A former CIA Director is trying to manufacture outrage in a cynical American electorate over Trump removing his security clearance!
That may be the worst election strategy decision since Hillary called half of the country, “A basket of deplorables.”
Many of whom were black, by the way.
You know they are desperate when they trot out Nate Silver of Five-Thirty-Eight.com to scold us about bad statistical methodology.
Remember, Nate was the guy with the 98% chance of Hillary winning. Rasmussen had Trump winning in 2016.
Here’s a statistical reality for you, Nate, normal distributions are worthless in abnormal times.
And these are the epitome of abnormal times.
Going forward, what will be abnormal is the Democrats winning any major election.