GOSHDARN LIBERAL MEDIA, WITH THEIR FACTS AND SUCH

In nearly every American news outlet, there is some form of bias. In recent years, these biases have become more and more evident with the continued polarization of the American Political sphere. To look at true media biases, I searched “Trump immigration Fox”, “Trump immigration NBC”, and “Trump immigration NPR”. The point of this was to look at discrepancies in coverage between a traditionally conservative source, Fox, a traditionally liberal source, NBC, and a traditionally unbiased source, NPR. 

FOX

Fox’s immigration article covering Trump discussed his recent comments surrounding his recent comments that illegal immigrants “are getting the hell out or they are going to prison”. The angle that they took with this article was that the undocumented people that he is targeting are dangerous criminals such as MS-13. Fox displayed Trump as an American who was a strong leader that wants clean streets. An example of this bias is speaking of MS-13 and a quadruple homicide. This plants in everyone’s mind that all immigrants are violent criminals, which pushes Trump’s policies of tighter immigration laws. Fox covers Trump as much as anyone. Most of their stories are either coming from Trump himself or Trump’s people. The amount that they are sighting Trump rather than other experts or even elaborating on what he is saying, points to the possibility that Fox is being used as a PR campaign from the Trump camp. 

NBC

For the sake of consistency, I chose to go with a NBC article that covered the exact same comments from Trump. However it had a very different feel than the Fox article. This article had the goal to poke holes in the claims that Trump made about deporting “Tremendous criminals”. It questions the claims for statistical proof then claims that even a “DUI” could result in someone being deported. An example of a bias is the way in which this article frames that “even a DUI, driving under the influence, could result in deportation proceedings.”. That sentence frames that very minor crimes report in deportation, when drunk drivers kill 1000s of Americans every year. NBC covers Trump almost as much as FOX covers Trump. Most of NBC’s stories are a product of their media team because they are looking for the ability to poke holes in any Republican story while remaining truthful. 

NPR

NPR has always been a personal favorite for news because while it has as much excitement as watching the paint dry, it is in general the most unbiased major news outlet. The article I found discussed the ramifications of increased deportations of people who have mandatory ICE check-ins. It seemed to have little bias if any, just reporting and interviewing a women who is directly effected by the increase of deportations. NPR doesn't cover Trump near as much as other outlets, they focus on covering both local and international news and how those stories effect the American people more than staring at Trump waiting for him to blink. Most of their stories are found through their own reporters and media team because of the lesser focus on Trump. 

If I was Trump advisors, I would tell him to not change anything about how he pushes stories. That is because Fox will always back you up, NBC will always bash you, and NPR will always be playing in a little hipster coffeeshop that has some guy named Stue working the register. It will be interesting to see how these news outlets continue to cover stories as the polarization of American politics continues. 

Sources:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/04/18/trump-illegal-immigrant-criminals-are-getting-hell-out.html

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/18/trump-on-bad-immigrants-theyre-getting-the-hell-out-or-theyre-going-to-prison.html

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/03/522424593/immigration-dragnet-gains-support-after-migrants-are-arrested-for-crimes

Only one question remains... Who set the agenda?!?!?!?

Donald Trump’s agenda and policy stances has caused a shift in the Republican party towards the far right. Throughout his campaign he continually too more and more nationalist stances. What was really interesting about this was, while receiving push back from the Republican party, the Republican party slowly but steadily both the constituency and officials began to follow his issue stances.

Trump’s issues

Throughout the campaign, Trump pushed anti-immigration and anti-trade agendas. One of Trump’s most famous policy stance is his push for a wall on the southern border. This was one of his first major policy platforms, and it really help set the tone for a much more nationalist campaign than many were expecting. Another one of Trump’s nationalist policy stance, is his stance on the middle east. During the campaign, while speaking at Fort Dodge, Trump in regards to the middle east he would, “Bomb the shit out of ‘em. i would just come those suckers.” This is a staunch uptick to what we were used to in Obama and even Bush. The final major nationalist policy stance that Trump has, is in regards to trade. He is for leaving NAFTA and PTT. His goal is to make sure America is buying American instead of outsourcing jobs. 

Traditional Republican Stance

Republicans, in general, are traditionally in favor for as little government involvement as possible in the private sector economy, a reformed immigration platform with strong borders, and a strong military however not an over reaching military. Their views are fairly similar to Trump in regards to immigration and military, however Republican views are much less intense an absolute. In regards to trade, Trump’s views differ greatly from the traditional Republican establishment. Republicans are for as unregulated of a free market as possible, while Trump wants to heavily regulate and tax international trade. 

A Republican Shift

Throughout primary season, many Republican establishment members tried to distance themselves from Trump because of their ideological differences. However, after the Republican constituency continued to support Trump, and he gained the party nomination, the establishment began to shift in their views and support for Trump. For example, under Obama, Mitch McConnell wouldn't support Syrian intervention, but under Trump, Mitch McConnell has already tweeted his support for the Syrian missile strike. Now the question remains as to whether this is a strictly partisan response and an attempt to preserve a future with in the party or if it is a genuine shift in feelings toward a very serious international relations issue. 

The media

With how Trump talks about the main stream media, it’s not a surprise that they aren't the nicest about his policy stances. After a quick NAFTA google news search, every respectable news source bashes it as a terrible idea. Searching for articles about “Syrian intervention”, only Fox news had support for the decision, and one could very easily lump Fox to the Republican establishment. I think that it’s the media who does most of the agenda in regards to Trump’s policy stances, because most of the time it is from a news source that we are getting the information about Trump’s issue. Since they are the source that means they have a chance to spin it and set it up however they like. 

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-bomb-isis-2015-11

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/07/politics/kfile-top-republicans-syria-trump/index.html?sr=fbCNN040717kfile-top-republicans-syria-trump0830PMStoryLink&linkId=36309418

2016: The Alec Baldwin Election

Pop culture plays a huge role in how we think about politicians. From songs to television shows and everything in-between, our opinions are shaped greatly by these medias. Donald Trump has bore the brunt of pop culture’s wrath. Even before Trump ran for office, he was a huge hit in realm of pop culture. For example, he was the guest of honor on a Comedy Central Roast and was also “stone cold stunned” in a special round of WWE. So now it is no surprise that he is still a very prominent face in pop culture. Nearly everyone is trying to take a shot at Trump, but I thought the best representation of Trump in pop culture, was in Saturday Night Live.

Saturday Night Live has made fun of Donald Trump literally once a week for the past year or so, so I tried to pick a skit from them that encompassed everything they were trying to say about him. The image that SNL (Saturday Night Live) was trying to portray of Trump is someone who has no idea what they're doing, someone who is just a puppet, and someone who has a very fragile ego. Each person who came in to speak with Trump would say something about the promises he made, and he would freak out because of how big the promises really were. At one point, he tries to google, “What is ISIS?”. This  is an attempt to show that Trump has no idea what he is doing in the middle east and no comprehension of foreign policy in general. SNL also wants Trump to look like a puppet. During his meeting with Pence in the skit, Trump needed reassurance that Pence would do all the work for him. Finally they portray Trump as egotistical because he needs confirmation from Twitter about his cabinet nominations as well as isn't willing to even really hold a meeting with Mitt Romney. 

This portrayal goes against almost everything Trump wants you to think of him. He wants to be seen as the man with plan who knows how to solve problems. Trump wants to be seen as a confident mans man who has been successful at all phases of life. By going after his intelligence, ego, and ability to lead, SNL is affectively altering the way people think about Trump. Obviously staunch Trump supporters don’t care about what SNL and Alec Baldwin have to say, but when it comes to people in the middle ground, these satirical critiques are just planted in people’s head and they will begin to look for them in real life. Most importantly, it has started to affect Trump himself. He has spoken out recently against SNL. That just shows that they have gotten under his skin and since then, SNL has amped up the satirical onslaught.

Sources: 

http://www.today.com/popculture/donald-trump-criticizes-alec-baldwin-s-impression-him-calls-snl-t105694

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUWSLlz0Fdo

Set advertisements to Attack!

Donald Trump’s advertising campaign follows the same pattern of his speech and social media style: braggadocios and brash. He uses a combination of candidate positive ads and attack ads, while mixing up image and policy style ads as well. To further understand Trump’s advertising campaign, I will break down four of Donald Trump’s most popular television advertisements. 

Make America Great Again

The first advertisement is Trump’s “Make America Great Again”. It is a 30 second television ad. The ad is an image ad that uses various issues to project the goal image. In this advertisement, Trump tries to create the image that is the savior of America that it needs. It is a positive image ad, that focuses on some of the issues that he knows his constituency will respond to. The issues he highlights the most heavily are that of health care reform, tax reform, and immigration control. The visuals in the advertisements are of Trump speaking to an audience. The purpose of these images are to focus solely on Trump and  project a powerful leader who can “save” America.

Corruption

The second one of Trump’s advertisements that I examined is titled “Corruption”. “Corruption” is a 30 second attack ad against Hillary Clinton. He is trying to paint her as a corrupt politician who's part of big money. Trump was very successful throughout his campaign at painting Hilary as a big money, career politician. Which is pretty ironic considering that Trump is worth much more money than the Clintons. In the advertisement, a creepy voice and blue colored images of Hillary paints helps set a negative image of Hilary. This advertisement is not very likely to change the mind of staunch Hilary supporters, but may give some undecideds something to think about. 

Deplorable

The Trump ad that I looked at was his ad called “Deplorable”. This is a 30 second attack ad that takes advantage of a Hillary Clinton gaffé, in which she referred to half of Trump’s following as nothing more than a basket of deplorables. This ad is an attempt to reach out to those offended by Hilary’s comments as well as make those comments known to undecideds and even some on Hilary’s side. This add helps draw parallels between Hilary and Romney in 2012 which would help persuade some of Hilary’s supporters. Trump is trying to use this advertisement to set himself apart from Hilary as someone who cares about the people as people.

Two America’s

The final Trump ad that I studied was called “Two America’s”. This is a 30 second television contrast attack ad. It is also an issue ad that highlights and compares Trump’s and Hilary’s economic issues. In the ad, Trump claims that Hilary’s economic plans hurts the middle class and will lose American jobs, while Trump’s economic plans will cut taxes, save the middle class, and create jobs. The intent of the advertisement is to make Trump seem as someone who cares about the working family, while making Hilary seem as someone who only looks out for their interests and the interests of the people on top. 

Trump ran a fairly effective advertising campaign. The goal of his advertising campaign was to seem as someone who understood the struggle of the average American, as well as coming across as someone who could do something about the struggle of the average American. Another goal of his advertising campaign is to make Hilary seem corrupt and out of touch with the average Americans. 

Sources

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ooCCMMXR4M

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur1eeLK71Jc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBbtCvUGweo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4obk0P2YCFg

OMGDYSWDTJT? (Oh my god, did you see what Donald Trump just tweeted?)

One aspect of the campaign and even well into his first hundred days in office that Donald Trump has taken full advantage of, is his online presence. During the campaign, he tweeted, posted, and grammed nearly every day. He was the first candidate to fully understand that platform that social media presented. On top of having a strong social media presence. Donald Trump has a very interactive website that has links to his social media profiles as well as directions for people who want to donate to him.

He uses Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/POTUS/) and Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/teamtrumpofficial/) about once a day to once every couple days. On these platforms he mostly posts pictures of his rallies, memes about making America great, and of course, how terrible Obama is. The social media platform that Trump is most recognized for is Twitter. The man actually has two twitter accounts (Potus link:  https://twitter.com/POTUS) (Personal link: https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump). One business one for the presidency and one personal one! I don’t even think Kim K has two twitter accounts. The really interesting part about these two accounts is that they favorite and retweet the other one’e tweets. His POTUS accounts acts like a digital hype man for his personal account. On these accounts, he generally bashes various news sources, talks about how great America is doing, and as per usual, bashes the Obama administration. On top of these accounts, I found his interactive website (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/) that allows people who are interested to have access to his social media accounts as well as donate to his cause. There is also a fan page set up on Facebook for Trump (https://www.facebook.com/donaldtrumpfanclub). This page just posts pro-Trump memes and shares pro-Trump posts. 

Donald Trump did a very good job of running social media across many different platforms. This allowed him to reach as many people as possible. He also did a great job of flooding twitter. What I mean is that it is nearly impossible to go a day without seeing at least tweet on my feed, and I don’t even follow him. That meant that his message is constantly being transmitted to an audience outside his immediate supporter block. His website is also very professional and easy to use. 

Although he is the first candidate to fully take advantage of online social media platforms, there are still areas in which he can improve. One of which is he needs to cut the petty stuff out. YOU ALREADY WON!!!!! IT DOESN’T MATTER THAT YOU HAVE BEEF WITH OBAMA AND HILARY, SO STOP TWEETING ABOUT IT!!!! Aside from the siege on the images of Obama and Hilary, Trump should stop posting/tweeting about fake news. It just hurts his image and his credibility. The attack on news outlets has even drawn criticisms from within his own party. For example, George W. Bush, DUBYAA for short, openly criticized Trump’s obsession with the media in an interview with the Today Show. 

While scrolling through his POTUS account, one tweet stuck out to me. It is him demanding for an investigation to be opened on Nancy Pelosi for having close ties with Russia. What made this stick out to me is how ironic it is that he is accusing people of having ties with Russia when he is currently under investigation for the same thing. It just seems like a very bad attempt to throw people off of his trail and gains some credibility. 

By the numbers, the tweet had seemed to have the best reaction from the audience was a tweet about unity. It makes sense that this one was the one that garnered the most support because it was over something everyone can get behind. If he can keep the attacks that aren't based on anything factual down, and continue to make unifying posts, Trump will continue to set the bar for how politicians can effectively use social media as a platform for mass communication.

Sources:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump

https://twitter.com/POTUS

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/

https://www.facebook.com/donaldtrumpfanclub

https://www.instagram.com/teamtrumpofficial/

https://www.facebook.com/POTUS/

Donald Trump: Businessman, TV personality, President, and... Poll Dancer?

Throughout the 2016 campaign, political analysts and pollsters were all but certain that Hillary Clinton would become the next POTUS, however, they were almost all wrong. The polls and predictions were off almost across the board.

Who got it right?!?!?!?!

 According to Real Clear Politics, only two pollsters the day before the election had a Trump victory, that’s right only TWO out of 21 polls had just the winner correctly called. One of the polls that had a Trump victory was a tracking poll from ISB/TIPP. Looking further into their data, they thrived where the other polls has faltered. They correctly predicted a resounding Trump victory in the mid west and southern regions, while  also showing that Hillary Clinton underperformed with black/hispanic voters. These accuracies are what allowed ISB/TIPP to correctly predict a Trump victory. Another poll that had a Trump victory was the USC Dornsife/ LA Times. They actually had an overshot prediction of Trump winning by 5%. There are two reasons as to why their poll had predicted a Trump victory. The first reason is that they had accurately shown that uneducated voters who generally break democrat went to Trump. The second reason is the same as why ISB/TIPP was accurate, it showed that Hispanics weren't flocking to the democrats as they had in the past.

What went wrong?!?!?!

The big question remaining, is why were so many pollsters off? The answer lies in two major mistakes. The first mistake is that there was an error in weighting methods. The pollsters miss weighted the Hispanic vote and the uneducated vote. These are two groups that aren't very likely to respond to polls, so there is a big opportunity to weight them and the majority of pollsters mis-weighted them. The second mistake is more of an error on the respondents part. It is an error that has to do with social desirability. Social desirability is the desire to be seen as a certain way by society so many people different feel comfortable responding as Trump supporters so they either lied or didn't respond. This same phenomena can be seen with black candidates. Respondents are more likely to respond in a poll in favor of a black candidate so as to been seen as a socially conscience individual. This is called the “Wilder” effect, Hillary Clinton experienced this effect. That is a large reason why I believe much of the polling data was off. 

What They Could Have Done Different

I don’t think that the polls could have done much about the “Wilder” effect. Maybe ask questions less directly so respondents can’t decide which candidate which views most directly supports. This may be unethical, but i don’t see another way to get around the “Wilder” effect. The incorrect weighting is an issue that I believe the pollsters would have to look beyond the data to who Trump is appealing to. It seems almost a little too obvious to me that uneducated white voters would be all aboard the Trump train. As for the miscalculation of the Hispanic vote, I think that could have been predicted as well if the pollsters looked outside of the numbers. Trump was staunchly against illegal immigration which is something I know from my experience with family friends who went the legal process are really against as well. Looking outside the numbers isn't something that pollsters do very much but I think that it could have really helped them in the 2016 election.

Importance and Limitations of Polls

Despite the occasional “inaccuracies” of polls, they provide a way to look into the mind of the average voter and figure out what strategies would work the best in a fairly cost/time efficient way. With that being said, they have some major limitations. Firstly, they don’t give a definite number, instead they operate on a 95% confidence interval. This means that the pollster is 95% confident that the true number is between a range of numbers, so the pollster isn't even 95% confident in the number that you see on TV or the internet. Secondly, pollsters have to rely

on a sample of the population and then play a guessing game trying to predict the rest of the population. They are pretty good but it isn't a 100% yet. Thirdly, they can’t take undecided voters into account. If polls were 100% accurate and predictive then there would be no need for the election, but unfortunately we are not there yet.

Sources:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

http://cesrusc.org/election/

http://www.investors.com/politics/ibd-tipp-presidential-election-poll/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/president/

Trump vs. Clinton: Are You Ready To Rumble?!?!?!?!?!

The first presidential debate was one of the most important events of the 2016 presidential election. It was the first opportunity for a majority of Americans to see Donald Trump up close outside of the plethora of soundbites and out-of-context quotes. Despite dropping in the polls, I believe that this debate was instrumental in his election as president. For that reason, I chose the first section of the first debate (approx. first 20 min) for this blog. 

Trump’s high points

Overall, I found that Trump performed very well. Even though the question that started the sequence of debate was to Hillary, I thought he did a very good job of controlling the pace and demanding attention. The highest point of the debate for Trump was when he outlined his plan for increasing taxes to foreign countries that will help keep jobs in America. This has been an issue that he has garnered a lot of support from the normally democratic voting uneducated white voters. Another overall plus from this section is the fact that he showed the American voters that he isn’t always just spewing racist or misogynistic statements. This made him seem like a much more legitimate candidate at the time. The next aspect that he did a very good job of was rebutting Hillary’s comments regarding the loan his parents gave him. He turned the negative into a positive. Trump did that by discussing how he turned that loan into a multi-billion dollar company and how he plans to do that with the United States Economy

Trump’s Low points

In the section of the debate that I studied, Trump had only one very weak point. He was visibly flustered (no shocker here) when Hillary pulled out a quote of his regarding the housing crisis. When she pulled out the quote, "I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy,”, he cut her off by saying, “That’s business”. By cutting her off, he showed weakness and the bad temper that many of his opponents are fearful of. Aside from this gaffe, I didn't see any other major issues with his debating style in the first section of the debate. 

Suggestions?

If I was Trump’s advisor,e I would tell him a couple of things to try. For one, stick to the red power tie! It was his marquee look, and it really did demand attention and respect. The second suggestion I would make to him would be to know that you're going to get attacked and sometimes you need to brush it off. By brushing off some attacks it would change ideas about him in the electorate and place him in a position of control. The final suggestion that i would make to Donald Trump is more of a critique on his speaking style. I would tell him to ease off the constant hand gestures and limit them to points that need extra emphasis. 

Possible talking point issues?

In the section of the debate that I studied, the issues in discussion was narrowed to closing the wage gap and maintaining more jobs. The talking point issue that Trump could have fit into this section would be bringing jobs to the inner cities, and doing so not just by saying we’re going to clean up the gangs. This could have been a huge opportunity to present a plan to help minorities. A half decent sounding plan could have helped gain at least a small section of African-American voters. Just in general, if a Republican candidate can find a way to tap that voter block, it would end any chance of a Democratic victory. 

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2016/05/19/politics/donald-trump-2006-hopes-real-estate-market-crashes/index.html

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-post-debate-polls-228984