5. The source of Donald Trump’s popularity is a multifaceted mystery whose full explication would have to include: the economic and cultural anxieties of white middle-class Americans (particularly men); the latent racism of many voters; widespread frustration with Washington politics; and Trump’s singular ability to monopolize a fragmented media that disproportionately covered his campaign because it was newsworthy, shocking, and good for ratings. It’s my personal belief that Trump’s massive exposure was a double-edged sword: It maximized his support (which was shockingly large) and inflated his unfavorable numbers, the highest of any general election candidate on record. It’s difficult to hold up Trump as a simple example of exposure effect, in part because many Americans were widely exposed both to the candidate himself and to so many arguments about the dangers of his candidacy.