If you want to win in a presidential election, you have the advantage if you can innovate, whether through enhanced methods of communication, changes in the “standard politician” personality, or bringing in outside influencers). This trend began with Abraham Lincoln and continued in the 20th century. However, we haven’t stagnated since then. Moving further away from the Cold War that dominated the late 20th century and into “modern” political machinations, we continue to see multiple innovations through the election cycles.

Bill Clinton, the first of the post-Cold War presidents, took Reagan’s lessons—humanizing himself with wit and charm—one step further. He not only humanized himself to voters on the campaign trail and during official election functions, but he was able to show his personality in non-political settings. Perhaps the most well-known moment of the 1992 election was Bill Clinton, sunglasses on, playing “Heartbreak Hotel” on a saxophone at the Arsenio Hall talk show. Clinton’s insertion of himself into the pop culture zeitgeist endeared him to younger voters and exposed him to those not as politically inclined, a tremendous lesson for political aspirants moving forward and yet another innovation for presidential candidates of the future.

As the 2008 election drew near, the candidates could not have been starker in contrast. On the one hand, John McCain, a dinosaur neo-con and Warhawk for a political policy and party that was rapidly losing its appeal, and on the other hand, Barack Obama, a little-known community organizer and senator from Illinois who flew into the national spotlight after snatching the Democrat nomination from the establishment’s choice, Hillary Clinton.

Image: Rumble screen grab.

But where Obama made his mark was by embracing new technology, notably social media, including Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, and Twitter. Taking a lesson from his predecessor Bill Clinton, Obama took the idea of a virtual town hall into the World Wide Web by conducting the first presidential Reddit “ask me anything” session while also being the first president with a Twitter account, on which he (or his staff) regularly posted.

Obama came off as a President for the modern age, someone who would be able to handle the present-day problems of America, while McCain looked old, dated, and frankly, as the cranky old man he was. Obama won easily and set the standard for political candidates using social media.

And now we come to the Teflon Don himself. While Trump’s 2016 victory was historic, with his Twitter usage eclipsing Obama’s, many might argue he did so out out of necessity, as Trump had few outlets of mainstream media that weren’t outright hostile to him.

However, typically for Trump, he used that hostility to his advantage, antagonizing the media at every turn from his social media and establishing his “outside the establishment” reputation. He coupled this outsider vibe with an almost “insult comic” approach to political debates.

While some combative words weren’t uncommon in debates of the past, Trump was a master not only at tearing his political opponents apart verbally but also at using colorful nicknames. Whether it was calling his primary opponents “Low-energy Jeb” and “Little Marco” or his ultimate challenge against “Crooked Hillary,” Trump took a no-holds-barred, mixed martial arts approach to the art of argumentation. His supporters not only identified with his everyman vernacular but also with his fighting attitude.

In 2024, Trump refined his tactics even further, putting on a masterclass in attacking your opponent’s flanks and vulnerable base. While accounts have differed, the Trump campaign clearly realized that connecting with young men would be critical to winning the election. To communicate with them, he would need to embrace the world of alternative media.

It’s no secret that alternative news programs such as The Rubin Report, Tim Pool’s Timcast show, Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire brand, and many others were drawing more eyeballs and gaining significantly more attention and traction than many standard media outlets, even Fox News. Barron Trump, the President’s youngest son and an 18-year-old young man himself, has been credited with encouraging his father to go on podcasts he listened to himself.

The result was a whirlwind of appearances on Andrew Schultz, Theo Von, and the mother of all podcasts, Joe Rogan. These podcasts gave Trump a long-form platform to convey his message and discuss policy positions. They humanized him to a large audience that had often only seen the former President in 30-40 second snippets, many of which the media edited to hurt his image.

What made this innovation even more powerful was that his opponent, the empty pantsuit of personality that is Kamala Harris, had continually failed to handle even sympathetic interviews well. Worse, she chose not to go on the Joe Rogan podcast. Trump dominates Kamala, particularly with young men and Latino men. He sailed into his re-election with these demographics, shifting the paradigm yet again.

As we look to the future, it’s clear that the innovations of our political machines will not be stopping anytime soon. I fully expect the next election cycles to start looking into Virtual Reality, possibly even the use of a “candidate AI” program that would allow voters to ask questions to a personification of the candidate, complete with formulated answers based on data the candidate provides. Still, with a few years to go, there may soon be new forms of technology I can’t even imagine.

Gregory McCants is a pseudonym.