The audacity of Trump: how he won and what we missed: Reuben Steff dicusses the outcome of the recent American presidential election.

• Author: Steff, Reuben

Donald Trump made a number of key strategic decisions during his election campaign. Contrary to the common view that his campaign was marked by incompetence and dysfunction, there is considerable evidence that he made adroit decisions at key times. These were overlooked and dismissed by his political opponents to their ultimate disadvantage and defeat. If the Democratic Party hopes to take back the White House in four years' time, and the wider world wants to understand the 'Trump phenomenon', it is imperative that we look at the logical thread that underlies Trump's seemingly irrational behaviour.

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Donald Trump's victory in the US election was, in significant part, a result of the inability of Democrats, the media and political pundits to view Trump as anything other than an irrational and impulsive firebrand. A less hysterical and emotionally-driven reaction to Trump's campaign would have provided a sounder basis for defeating him. This is because there was a strategic thread running through Trumps bellicosity that practically every Democrat and liberal failed to see. His often contradictory statements on a range of issues bewildered his opponents, diverting attention away from the cunning strategic moves he was making throughout the campaign. This article outlines some often overlooked reasons behind Trump's victory, some of which may surprise.

The first element of Trump's success lay in his choice of personnel. Specifically, after weeks of controversy that embroiled Trumps first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowsky, Trump made a surprising change. On 17 August his campaign announced that long-time Republican campaign manager and pollster, Kellyanne Conway, and executive chair of Breitbart News, Steve Bannon, would be brought on board. Conway would act as Trump's campaign manager, while Bannon was elevated to chief executive. The differing reputations of the two could not have been starker. Conway was widely respected across the Republican establishment as a professional and measured operator. Bannon, on the other hand, was seen as the ultimate outsider and mischiefmaker: a man who had presided over the transformation of Breitbart News from a conservative website that characterised itself as 'the Huffington Post of the right' into a champion of what is now known as the 'alt-right', a movement that embraces American (often white) nationalism, rejects mainstream conservativism and opposes immigration, multiculturalism and political correctness. (1) To most people, the ideas Bannon represented went against the tide of history, where liberal democracies such as the United States (and New Zealand) embrace openness and tolerance.

To outsiders, the Bannon-Conway tandem seemed the oddest of pairings, and one destined to generate dysfunction at the highest levels of Trump's campaign. But the shakeup was made precisely when it was called for. It followed the nadir of his campaign in the middle weeks of August. At this point Nate Silver's 538 election forecast website (which successfully forecast the results of every US state during the 2012 US election) gave Trump only a 10.8 per cent chance of winning the presidency. (2) After the rearrangement of senior personnel in his campaign, chance of success would never reach such a low point again.

The personnel change had the effect of shoring up Trump's position and would ultimately sharpen Trump's campaign messaging. For a start, by having Conway on board, it sewed up his flank with parts of the Republican establishment, who had threatened to abandon him in droves. Conway not only performed as Trump's manager but also acted as his surrogate repeatedly on America's largest cable news networks. You could not turn on Fox News, CNN or CNBC for long before Conway appeared and delivered defences of Trump's outlandish rhetoric and positions with a measured and sure tone that conveyed reassurance.

Bannon, for his part, and irrespective of his controversial stewardship of Breitbart News, had his finger on the pulse of the American electorate. In 2014 Bannon delivered a speech via Skype to the Vatican, where he explained that one of the motivating forces behind the rise of populist parties in the West was economic forces unleashed by the tide of globalisation that had been extending across large parts of the globe since the 1980s, and that seemed to work against working class people. Bannon stated that through this crisis of capitalism, a centre-right populist movement was emerging out of the working classes opposed to the elites that ran their countries. (3) To Bannon, Breibart News was the platform for this voice in America. Bannon would take this insight with him into the Trump campaign and make Trump's appeal to the working classes of America razor sharp.

The Conway-Bannon strategy played out to great effect, allowing Trump-leaning voters to see in Trump's behaviour what they...