Looking at his speech for the Orlando shooting can give us some insight on how he has risen to the top of the food chain. At the beginning, He starts off with his was plan to talk about "Hillary.. and especially how badly she'd do as a president." although he continues on the say that the threat of terrorism is the most important thing to address. He goes on to say "The attack on the Pulse night club in Orlando Florida was the worst terror strike on our soil since September 11th,2001."
By addressing something dear in everyone's hearts, like a mass shooting, and grouping it with another devastating attack in the past, he is pulling at the heartstrings of people all across the US. After sucking in the audience, he gets to the real point of his speech: suspending immigration.
"We need to respond to this attack on America as one united people, with force, purpose, and determination. But the current politically correct response cripples our ability to talk and to think and act clearly. We’re not acting clearly, we’re not talking clearly, " he argues. "We’ve got problems...The killer, whose name I will not use, or ever say, was born in Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States." By mentioning the fact that the shooter was an immigrant, Trump is making an indirect Slippery Slope fallacy. He might as well say 'All immigrants from the Middle East are liabilities.'
I mean, I could get food poisoning from a piece of cake I bought at a certain bakery, but that doesn't mean all pieces of cake from that bakery are necessarily going to poison me. I mean, am I right, or just crazy?
Another thing to point out is that at that point in the speech, Trump begins to mirror the tone of the impromptu speech given by President Bush shortly after 9/11, which we all know lead to a bad outcome.
The problem in the USA is not simply immigrants, but the stigmas we have about immigrants. Trump makes sure to highlight everything bad about immigrants, but fails to explain how immigrating to the US affects the likelihood of someone causing a mass shooting. Did we not remember all the mass shootings done on our soil by Americans? It's funny, because on this land, many people who claim to be "real Americans" also forget that they wouldn't live here if their ancestors hadn't immigrated to the US.
Trump has become so popular because of his ability to connect things that don't necessarily compare. If you minimize his speeches to simply their arguments, nearly no one would agree. It's the embellishment that keeps his radical campaign afloat. He knows how to talk the talk, but at the end of the day, it's about whether or not he can preform up to the standards he gloats about in each speech.
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