Salon.com: Donald Trump has already won one important primary, and that’s why he’s not going anywhere any time soon.
Every time Donald Trump says or does something that would destroy the careers of most politicians, he maintains or even gains supporters. It seems that nothing he does erodes his support. His voters are loyal, that’s for sure.
If you want to understand the Trump phenomenon and the durability of his campaign, you have to understand his voters and how they get their information. Many on the left mistakenly think that Trump supporters are “low-information voters.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Actually, it’s the opposite. They consume a lot of news and information, and almost all of it comes from their most trusted source — Matt Drudge.
Matt Drudge is all in for Trump, and he is making sure that his millions of daily readers are getting the news.
Drudge, of course, is the owner of the popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report, a site that records approximately 2 million unique visitors a day with about 700 million page views per month. His readers are loyal, too. A 2014 Pew Research Center study found that the Drudge Report is among the most trusted news sources among conservatives, while most mainstream media outlets register a very high level of distrust from that group.
His loyal readers don’t trust information coming from other sources, and that allows Drudge to carefully curate links to articles that help to further his pro-Trump point of view among that audience. The most pro-Trump conservative news site is Breitbart.com. Breitbart is so pro-Trump that some have charged that the Breitbart company is being paid by Trump for favorable coverage. The truth is that Breitbart’s loyalty is more to Drudge than it is to Trump.
Breitbart was founded by the late Andrew Breitbart, who was the Drudge Report’s first employee. He founded the Breitbart news site after leaving the Drudge Report, but remained personally and professionally close to Drudge. The Breitbart site established itself quickly as the go-to news source for grass-roots anti-establishment conservatives, with an assist from Drudge who regularly posted Breitbart article links on the Drudge Report. Over the years, the Drudge Report has directed millions and millions of readers to Breitbart stories…
Trump has made immigration the centerpiece of his campaign and he credits best-selling author and conservative provocateur Ann Coulter’s new book, “Adios America,” with shaping his view on that issue. Coulter and Drudge are close friends. In fact, they were seen sitting together in the audience at last week’s Republican debate on CNN. She even dedicated one of her many bestsellers to Drudge.
