The Victors

The internal mechanics of the "Pied Piper" strategy—revealed via the 2016 WikiLeaks release of hacked DNC and Clinton campaign emails—show it was not just a passive preference. It was a deliberate, aggressive blueprint designed to manipulate the media and the electorate into elevating Donald Trump.
The strategy was born out of extreme hubris, executed with clinical intent, and ultimately resulted in one of the greatest political backfires in American history.

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1. The Core Objective: "Elevate" Trump to "Leader of the Pack"
On April 23, 2015—just weeks after Hillary Clinton formally announced her candidacy—her campaign manager Robby Mook and top staff circulated an internal memo titled "Our Strategy against the GOP Field".

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The primary target of the Clinton campaign's anxiety was not Donald Trump; it was the Republican establishment, specifically Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio. The campaign feared a polished, well-funded moderate who could appeal to suburban independents and minority voters.

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To neutralize the establishment, the memo explicitly commanded:
"We need to be elevating the Pied Piper candidates so that they are leaders of the pack and tell the press to take them seriously."

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While Ted Cruz and Ben Carson were on the list, Donald Trump was the crown jewel of the strategy. The plan was to use Trump as a "cudgel" to force the entire Republican field so far to the right that the eventual nominee would look unhinged to general election voters. If Trump himself won the nomination, the Clintons believed the election would be a cakewalk.

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2. How the Clintons Manipulated the Media Machine
The Clinton campaign realized that they didn't need to spend money directly defending Trump; they just needed to weaponize their immense influence over mainstream political journalism.
The Directives to the Press: Clinton’s communications team actively pressured friendly reporters and cable news networks to grant Trump massive, uninterrupted airtime. The instruction to "tell the press to take them seriously" worked flawlessly.

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The Valuation of Free Airtime: Because media executives saw Trump as a ratings goldmine and the Clinton camp was actively validating his candidacy as a serious threat to the GOP establishment, Trump received an estimated $2 billion in free "earned media" coverage during the primaries. This was more than twice what Clinton received and vastly choked out every other Republican candidate.

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The "Hoarding" of Opposition Research: As detailed in the post-election book Shattered, Mook's internal directive was to hold fire on Trump during the Republican primary. The campaign actively stockpiled their most damaging opposition research, intentionally refusing to leak it to the public. They wanted to ensure Trump wasn't destroyed by his Republican rivals before he could secure the nomination.

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3. The Arrogance and Internal Delight
Internal emails from Clinton's innermost circle show that as Trump began to dominate the GOP polls in late 2015, the campaign was celebratory. They genuinely believed their mad-scientist experiment was going exactly according to plan.

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In one leaked exchange, Neera Tanden (a top Clinton confidante) emailed campaign chairman John Podesta to mock Jeb Bush's failing campaign:
"Bush sucked. I’m glad Hillary is obsessed with the one candidate who would be easiest to beat... Besides Trump, of course."
There were very few dissenting voices. One advisor, Brent Budowsky, sent a frantic warning to Podesta, writing: "Right now I am petrified that Hillary is almost totally dependent on Republicans nominating Trump." His warning was largely ignored by a campaign apparatus entirely convinced of its own algorithmic superiority.
4. The Catastrophic Backfire
The Clintons treated Donald Trump like a reality-TV caricature, entirely failing to recognize the brewing populist rage across the American rust belt and working-class communities. They assumed the electorate would view Trump exactly as they did: as a grotesque, unelectable joke.

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Instead, by validating Trump’s platform and ensuring he was the center of gravity in American media, the Clintons built the very launchpad Trump needed. They destroyed the Republican establishment candidates who might have stopped him, cleared his path to the nomination, and then watched in horror as the monster they chose to supercharge turned around and demolished Hillary Clinton's political career on November 8, 2016.

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Prominent Articles Detailing This Specific Failure:
POLITICO Magazine: They Always Wanted Trump – Published just one day before the 2016 election, this piece provides an incredibly detailed timeline of how Brooklyn headquarters gleefully rooted for and enabled Trump's rise.

Politico
Salon: How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately "elevated" Donald Trump with its "Pied Piper" strategy – Published immediately after her defeat, this article lays the blame for Trump's presidency squarely on the hubris of the Clinton camp's WikiLeaks memo.

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The Observer: Pro-Clinton Media Outlets Blame Fake News for the Trump Mess They Made – A scathing autopsy of how the DNC-media pipeline fed the Trump phenomenon for tactical advantage, only to plunge the country into uncharted political waters.
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