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.
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No, Nate Silver did not give Clinton a 98.5% chance of winning on election morning. That was one of the major newspapers, maybe the WaPo. Silver gave her only an 80% chance. He was much more careful than most.
Put your money where your mouth is.
Put $2000 down on Trump getting 20 % of the black vote in 2020.
Today.
I dares ya
You’re funny. Since I called the exact way Trump would beat Hillary in March of 2016 do you really want to bet against me?
A Democrat or Liberal will read this and hear “waw waw waw Trump waw waw waw”
Never in my life have I ever seen such a large group of people so brainwashed, bitter, void of free thought and angry as today’s Liberals and Democrats. I hope this ends well. It doesn’t look like it will.
You and me both Gregg. Just keep your ears open and your attitude positive and things will work out in the end while the ideologically blind eat themselves.
what a load of garbage. that’s all projection, bud. might as well be criticizing what you are seeing in the mirror.
Nice piece. Are you related to the Luongo’s in Sanford? If so we lived across the street from them, found you via ZeroHedge looks like you got yourself a nice early viral article. Hit the spot well Democrats are in for surprise. Five thirty seven is done I’ve been watching them and they are repeating the same mistakes, skewing polls they don’t like in the way they do like- pretty clear what their intention is.
Rich,
I’m sorry this comment is so late in getting approved, I just found it in my spam folder. No, I’m not related to any Luongo’s in Sanford, Fl. Thanks for reading and the kind words.
Nate gave Hillary a 70% or 75% chance of winning the Election, not 98%
Don’t defend Nate. He was a pure operative for her up until the morning of the election. And he had her at greater than 95% that whole weekend coming into election day.
I argued his methodology with him and his adherents coming into the election and was proven right… Because of exactly what I said in the article.
Statistics is easy when there is a normal distribution, but that is the biggest assumption in nearly all statistical models and when there isn’t a similar set of boundary conditions for the current data set, past data sets do not hold any predictive power.
Everything looks like an outlier, until, of course, the outcome proves you wrong, which is what happened to Nate.
Nate built his rep on the 2012 election getting 49 states right. But, that was the easiest election to call in recent memory. My cat could have gotten 45 states right, FFS.
So, it doesn’t matter if Nate owned up at the last moment, he was hip deep in the gaslighting going on in the run-up to Election Day and many times had Hillary a 95+ probable winner.
Yes we Kanye…..
I agree with everything, except I see Democratic voters leaving the corrupt neoliberal world of Clinton/Obamba/Pelosi and joining A more socialist party like UK’s Labor party.
I agree with everything, except I see Democratic voters leaving the corrupt neoliberal world of Clinton/Obamba/Pelosi and joining A more socialist party like UK’s Labor party.
yes the progressives will join the greens and leave the neocon/ neoleberalcons the underclass…
nonsense. conservatives who are clear-headed AND patriots are shedding from the GOP like water from a leaky bucket. We have a country with real people in it to save. Not hyper-individualistic, corporate-fueled, ideological ground to defend.
@ Joeyc
Support for a President usually decreases over the course of their term, not increase. Trumps support is increasing, no matter what polls you follow, the trend is towards support. The GOP isn’t losing voters, they are gaining supporters. Every time a Liberal or Democrat Shill gets on CNN and has an unhinged break down like the ex CIA guy who attacked Paris Denard the other day, pushes people out of the Liberal bubble and out into the real world. So many people who had called themselves Liberal (I was one up until 2016) are no longer calling themselves Liberal and are leaving in droves. The Left just went to far left and the Global Corporations are supporting the extreme left (most likely Chinese support or influence but who knows). It’s not comfortable on the left for anyone unless they can play the identity politics game and have the right DNA.
Support for Trump from minorities, gays, blacks and even women are increasing, not decreasing. Will this turn into support for mid-terms? who knows, but if the GOP loses just a few seats in either house, the blue wave will have failed. The houses almost always go the other way 2 years after an election.
Trump seems to be bucking all trends.
It rules that you think a shitty marketing self-help book is more scientific than a normal distribution assumption. That’s like galaxy-brain-level genius right there. And running with the one dubious poll that doesn’t say Trump’s black approval rating is a flatline. Brain genius.
Please don’t delete your post after the midterms. It’s a real gem.
don’t worry I won’t need to
I really enjoy seeing an unhinged John Brennan complaining about President Trump removing his access to the other Deep State actors. His insanity defense message is the best marketing tool for Trump this year.
What I see in Brennan is the stupidest person to ever head one of the “intelligence” agencies. And every time he opens his mouth, he proves how dangerous a moron with a security clearance is.
This is what happens when someone whiffs their own farts on their hobby farm for too long. They lose touch with reality and write stuff like this.
Glad you liked it.
This prediction continues to age like fine wine:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/11/trump-slides-new-poll-reality-begins-piercing-bubble/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d5c9e8b041ce