The Donald Trump Campaign Strategy - Coursework Example

Campaign Report: The Donald Trump Campaign Strategy (CAALR) Student’s Name Institution Campaign Report: The Donald Trump Campaign Strategy (CAALR) Introduction Political campaigns always take different aspects and types of propaganda that are meant to persuade the public towards electing a particular candidate. The previous presidential campaign in the United States (US) presents some extensive and intensive application and implication of activist campaign where propaganda constitutes amongst the elements of the mass persuasion methodologies employed. Propaganda is described as a tool used to lead an audience towards a certain conclusion about a particular topic (Clawson & Oxley, 2013). The contemporary society characterises the vast application of this method, mostly in political campaign, towards attracting and gathering support for a particular candidate. The use of propaganda in a political campaign employs strategies such as slogans or bandwagon, as Turner (2017) describes it, name calling, endorsement, glittering generality, and use of symbols that identify with patriotism. This paper aims at reporting about the political activist campaign in a liberal society, where individual is allowed his or her rights to elect the candidate of his or her please, to assess the effectiveness of propaganda in political setting of a liberal society. Whilst establishing the positivism of propaganda, this paper intends to explore the political campaign in the context of 2016 General Elections in the US that featured the Republican candidate Donald Trump against the Democrat’s, Hillary Clinton and reflect on the roles of media, public sphere and propaganda in a liberal-pluralist society. Amongst the many propaganda strategies that Donal Trump employed, this paper seeks to employ content analysis to assess how Trump and his campaign team used glittering generalities such as building a wall at their border with Mexico and Mexico is to pay for it. This propaganda made used of emotional appeal to evoke the positive response from the candidate’s supports and non-supporters. Literature Review Political arena and activities are based in the how people communicate in the society. It is essential that politicians as well as sociologist understand the perspectives involved in societal communication. The society has always been identified with the hierarchical nature and communication through masses (Damberger, 2013; Mullen & Khaehn, 2010). Mullen & Klaehn (2010) describe two dimensions through which the society distributes power within the contemporary, capitalist, and liberal-democratic societies, as well as the role of media. The liberal-pluralistic society perspective of politics defines the political system as an arena where different opinions, policy proposals, and worldviews, amongst others, exist and allowed (Wring, 1996; Jowett & O’Donnell, 2012). The media is considered an integral part of a liberal society, as well as activist’s, through which individuals get informed as they also take part in activities within the society; media observes and promotes the interest of the public in the contemporary liberal society (Benkler, n.d.). However, through the media, information that is subject to transparency concerns is obtained. The acquisition of social power is mostly promoted by the media. The previous presidential election campaigns in the US present broad applications and use of the media to facilitate and promote social powers and political stabilities amongst the two parties, the Republicans and Democrats. The two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, used the media vastly to acquire information and inform the public about their ambitions concerning the wellbeing of the citizens. The two candidates used both the broadcast and participatory media in facilitating the process of gathering support from the public. Through the participatory media including the community media, blogs, and tagging, amongst many others, the two candidates were able to gather information against each other for the purpose of negatively impacting their popularity weakening their support among their supporters. Munger (2007) demonstrates the role of the relationship between the participatory and broadcast media arguing that the collection and conveying of information towards mass persuasion depends on the ability of individuals to make use of the media as a source of information and channel of communication. For instance, Trump campaign team employed the participatory media to acquire and raise information about the perceived scandals that were tying Clinton to inappropriate practices whilst she was holding a public office. Through this perspective of the media, Trump and his campaign team demonstrated to the public that Clinton was not fit for presidential office, making reference to the issues of scandals. Also, Trump and the team demonstrated that the challenges facing the public were as a result of bad systems set by the ruling party (Lahurd, 2017). Through the public sphere, the popular sovereignty, where every individual is allowed to exercise his or her will, was observed in the US (Clawson & Oxley, 2013). However, the main practice or activity towards directing the public and changing opinions towards supporting a candidate is through propaganda. Trump employed this mechanism as a defence through appeal to fear and emotions, which evoked anger of the public as well as shaping their opinion to see his as the only strong candidate to deliberate the country from the crisis that he propagated the country to be facing. Trump argued that “Our convention occurs as at a moment of crisis of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very life. Any politician who does not gasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.” Through the broadcast media, the campaign team painted any defences from the democrats as public relations campaigns aimed at keeping the elite in power hence reinforcing the anger of Americans (Gelders & Ihlen, 2010). According to Gelders and the colleague, Trump successfully rallied support in the backdrop of an enraged society that was fed up with the system. The media was seen to be in league with the government and part of a larger political conspiracy to ensure a Clinton victory. In the end, the incumbent party’s communication concerning policies and response to accusations unleashed by the rival Republicans were treated by the public as mere public relations acts as their voters grew increasingly apathetic (Gelders & Ihlen, 2010) towards the cause of the ruling party and their candidate in particular. Therefore, the activities and practices Trump’s campaign team demonstrated the role of the public sphere in a pluralistic and liberal society. Through emotional and fear appeals, the team was able to impact the value, emotions and beliefs, as well as evoking the anger, of the public against their opponent and towards Trump. Through propaganda, Clawson & Oxley (2013) reckoned that public opinion on social and political issues is very important in democratic societies. The authors argue that Trump strategically employed the idea of propaganda of different information to capture the populist anger and frustrations concerning the state of affairs of the nation by continually highlighting and stressing on the failures of the rule of the democrats. Trump’s campaign strategy focused on presenting him as a non-politician who, like all Americans, was uncomfortable with incompetence of the political class (Wead, 2017). Americans wanted a change of the political system and Donald Trump was presented as the best replacement (Feltus, Goldstein & Dallek, 2017). This argument also demonstrates the positivism of propaganda in a political campaign setting, since Trump would have not run for the presidential position if he considered himself non-politician. Method Employing content analysis, Trump campaign is remembered for ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan which created passion and widespread support from the Americans who felt that America was getting weaker by the minute due to poor management from the political class (Feltus, Goldstein & Dallek, 2017). The slogan was aimed at whipping public opinion in favour of Donald Trump (Clawson & Oxley, 2013). The slogan for the Trump campaign clearly identified the political system, including that of the opponent party, as the real enemy of America who had to be voted out in order for America to become great again while citing a poor economy, joblessness, insecurity, and incompetent policies, amongst many others. The Trump campaign team consistently argued that his presidency would make America stronger, as he attacked the flaws of the incumbent government and the previous ‘errors’ by competitor Hillary Clinton while holding public office. The language used by the campaign team to sell the idea of a Trump presidency making America great again was sometimes aggressive through the glittering generalities propaganda. Trump argued to build a wall at the border of US and Mexico and promised to force the Mexican government to fund the project. This argument was a classic authoritarian propaganda and evoked emotions and positive response from his supporters (Kellner, 2016). The supporters were already made to believe that most of their challenges were the consequences of unauthorised migration into and out of the US and Mexico, which he defensively propagated that the government and opponent party were not aware of or not considering as a priority. Although unpalatable, this strategy often attracts a variety of voters (Lilleker, 2011). The aggressive use propaganda though the media resulted in diverted opinion of the public to support Donald Trump for presidency; this practice demonstrated mass persuasion role in the liberal and pluralistic society. Trump and his campaign team used various aspects of the new data-industrial complex to further his chances of becoming president. Another media idem that contributed further to his campaign was Facebook Ads, which was majorly on the basis of identity database. Even though majority would dispute the information obtained from Facebook, it is a significant advertising platform that evidently influenced voters for Trump towards his presidency. The Trumps campaign team invested heavily in Facebook advertisement to reach his supporters as well as raising his campaign donations. The custom Facebook database that was referred to as Project Alamo, contained more than 220 million identity profiles in the US (Winston, 2016). One of the primary objectives of this platform was to depress the votes for Hillary Clinton, his opponent, by turning her potential supporter against her. For instance, the South Park-style animation portraying Clinton delivering ‘super predator’ line whist using her original 1996 sound bite, turned most of the Black Americans against her based on the propaganda that Clinton perceived them as predators (Winston, 2016). Through such Facebook propaganda circulations, Trump managed to turn most potential supporters against Clinton. Further, Trump and his campaign team used most of the sentiments about him to their advantage. The allegation that Trump was back then a racist was meant to depress his support amongst the non-White Americans. However, he used the sentiments to his advantage and most if such allegation only resulted in massive support for him. It is not always would a presidential candidate intentionally troll for media attention. However, Trump, with support from his team, ran his own Twitter and Facebook accounts, amongst others including several websites, which counterattacked sentiments from most media platforms. Through his Twitter account, Trump responded to racism allegations from CNN stating that “@CNN has to do better reporting if it wants to keep up with the crown. So totally one-sided and biased against me that it is becoming boring” (Albright, 2016). It is evident that Trump and his campaign team demonstrated the positivity of broadcast and participatory media in a liberal-pluralistic society through intensive and extensive used of various media items. Findings At the beginning of campaigns, Clinton was reported to be ahead of Trump, according to the opinion polls. However, upon strengthening the strategy through various methods, Trump managed to paint the idea of incompetency on the faces of the government and his opponent, Clinton, which resulted in the diverted opinion of the public against Hillary Clinton and the current government, sighting various allegations or propagated incompetency. The campaign though attracted some areas of critiques, such as being against the Mexicans when he mentioned about the wall at the border and Muslims when he mentioned about the increased terrorism in the cities of the US, attracted more support from the public who deem the propagated information valid. Therefore, the strategy of the Trump’s campaign was received positively by the believers in his ideas and massive support was the result. It is also notable that press and media is a vital tool for obtaining and spreading information during activist or political campaign. Trump managed to depress Clinton’s votes through the use media as a source and a channel to spread information. Through items like videos, animations, articles, and direct-TV ads, amongst many others, Trump managed to turn the majority of voters against Clinton, living him as the only option for presidency. Therefore, even though one would argue that Trump did not have enough support to become the president of the US, his campaign team eliminated his opponent through various propaganda and media tie, and he became their only choice. This strategy was effective in the sense that it subjected the voters towards electing him regardless of if they would prefer otherwise. However, is demonstrates certain areas of biasness; even though it was positive on its defence mechanisms, it was also misleading and propagandist, which primarily intended to eliminate the opponent rather than providing a fair competitive atmosphere to influence voters. Conclusion The previous presidential campaign in the United States (US) presents some extensive and intensive application and implication of activist campaign where propaganda constitutes amongst the elements of the mass persuasion methodologies employed. Trump and his campaign team demonstrated how glittering generalities, as a perspective of propaganda, can be used as a mass persuasion though the participatory and broadcast media to win the support of the public in a liberal-pluralistic society as that of the US. Building a wall at their border with Mexico and forcing the Mexican Government to fund it, amongst others, was a propaganda that; even though received few instances of critics; gathered much support for the public who considered it valid. Propaganda evokes positive response from the public upon demonstrating to them that they are part of the solution and change that they need. Trump commenced by sighting areas on weakness and incompetency in the current government and opponent party and then proceeded to propose aggressive solutions or interventions, which most of them are considered perspectives of propaganda. Reference Albright, J. (2016). How Trump’s campaign used the new data-industrial complex to win the election, LSE US Centre. Retrieved from http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2016/11/26/how-trumps-campaign-used-the-new-data-industrial-complex-to-win-the-election/ Benkler, Y. (n.d.). A free irresponsible press: wiki-leaks and the battle of the soul of the networked fourth estate. Harvard Law School. Brady, A. (2016). Plus ça Change? Problems of Post-Communism, 1-13. Clawson, R. A., & Oxley, Z. M. (2013). Public Opinion: Democratic Ideals, Democratic Practice. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 21(1), 122-124. Damberger, S.A. (2013). Activism or slacktivism? Evaluating the effectiveness of online activist movement through an analysis of KONY 2012 (Bachelor’s Thesis) Feltus, W. J., Goldstein, K. M., & Dallek, M. (2017). Inside Campaigns: Elections Through the Eyes of Political Professionals. Los Angles: SAGE, CQ PRESS. Gelders, D., & Ihlen, Ø. (2010). Government Communication about Potential Policies: Public Relations, Propaganda or Both? Public Relations Review, 36(1), 59-62. Jowett, G.S. & O’Donnell, V. (2012). Propaganda and persuasion (5th Ed). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications, Inc. Kellner, D. (2016). “The big lie”: How Trump uses classic authoritarian propaganda techniques. Retrieved from http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/37455-the-big-lie-how-trump-uses-classic-authoritarian-propaganda-techniques Lilleker, D. G. (2011). Key Concepts in Political Communication. London: Sage Publications. Mullen, A. & Klaehn, J. (2010). The Herman-Chomsky propaganda model: a critical approach to analysing mass media behaviour. Sociology Compass, 4(4): 215-229. Munger, M. C. (2007). Blogging and Political Information: Truth or Truthiness? Public Choice, 134(1-2), 125-138 Turner, L.L. (2017). Propaganda techniques for election, Classroom. Retrieved from http://classroom.synonym.com/propaganda-techniques-elections-9133.html Wead, D. (2017). Game of Thorns: The Inside Story of Hillary Clinton's Failed Campaign and Donald Trump's Winning Strategy. London: Biteback Publishing Ltd. Winston, J. (2016). How the Trump campaign built an identity database and used Facebook ads to win the election, StartupGrind. Retrieved from https://medium.com/startup-grind/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac Wring, D. (1996). From mass propaganda to political marketing: the transformation of Labour Party election campaigning. In Rallings, C., Broughton, D., Denver, D., & Farrell, D. (Ed). British Parties and Elections Yearbook 1995. Hampshire: Frank Cass. Read More

The liberal-pluralistic society perspective of politics defines the political system as an arena where different opinions, policy proposals, and worldviews, amongst others, exist and allowed (Wring, 1996; Jowett & O’Donnell, 2012). The media is considered an integral part of a liberal society, as well as activist’s, through which individuals get informed as they also take part in activities within the society; media observes and promotes the interest of the public in the contemporary liberal society (Benkler, n.d.).

However, through the media, information that is subject to transparency concerns is obtained. The acquisition of social power is mostly promoted by the media. The previous presidential election campaigns in the US present broad applications and use of the media to facilitate and promote social powers and political stabilities amongst the two parties, the Republicans and Democrats. The two candidates, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, used the media vastly to acquire information and inform the public about their ambitions concerning the wellbeing of the citizens.

The two candidates used both the broadcast and participatory media in facilitating the process of gathering support from the public. Through the participatory media including the community media, blogs, and tagging, amongst many others, the two candidates were able to gather information against each other for the purpose of negatively impacting their popularity weakening their support among their supporters. Munger (2007) demonstrates the role of the relationship between the participatory and broadcast media arguing that the collection and conveying of information towards mass persuasion depends on the ability of individuals to make use of the media as a source of information and channel of communication.

For instance, Trump campaign team employed the participatory media to acquire and raise information about the perceived scandals that were tying Clinton to inappropriate practices whilst she was holding a public office. Through this perspective of the media, Trump and his campaign team demonstrated to the public that Clinton was not fit for presidential office, making reference to the issues of scandals. Also, Trump and the team demonstrated that the challenges facing the public were as a result of bad systems set by the ruling party (Lahurd, 2017).

Through the public sphere, the popular sovereignty, where every individual is allowed to exercise his or her will, was observed in the US (Clawson & Oxley, 2013). However, the main practice or activity towards directing the public and changing opinions towards supporting a candidate is through propaganda. Trump employed this mechanism as a defence through appeal to fear and emotions, which evoked anger of the public as well as shaping their opinion to see his as the only strong candidate to deliberate the country from the crisis that he propagated the country to be facing.

Trump argued that “Our convention occurs as at a moment of crisis of crisis for our nation. The attacks on our police, the terrorism in our cities, threaten our very life. Any politician who does not gasp this danger is not fit to lead our country.” Through the broadcast media, the campaign team painted any defences from the democrats as public relations campaigns aimed at keeping the elite in power hence reinforcing the anger of Americans (Gelders & Ihlen, 2010). According to Gelders and the colleague, Trump successfully rallied support in the backdrop of an enraged society that was fed up with the system.

The media was seen to be in league with the government and part of a larger political conspiracy to ensure a Clinton victory. In the end, the incumbent party’s communication concerning policies and response to accusations unleashed by the rival Republicans were treated by the public as mere public relations acts as their voters grew increasingly apathetic (Gelders & Ihlen, 2010) towards the cause of the ruling party and their candidate in particular.

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