I have a question that somebody here may be able to answer; why has there been so little acknowledgement of Trump’s hosting Celebrity Apprentice as instrumental to his popularity? I never watched the show, so I don’t know whether he is just playing the same character on a larger stage. I am guessing that he draws minority support like no other Republican candidate because viewers of that show saw him dealing with minority apprentices in an even-handed way and that ,overall, people experienced him as fair and wise about decisions he made( if that was his role, I don’t know).
I think Celebrity Apprentice may have inoculated him against conservatives thinking he is a racist. One of the seasons I watched, he was more than even-handed; he had a mammoth man-crush on Geraldo Rivera. He was selected by team-mates for firing like 7 or 8 times in a row, but every time, Trump fired a much superior candidate.