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Trump was a new type of candidate during the 2016 election. A majority of the announcements that came out of his campaign came from Trump’s Twitter account. This was new for American politics, and since the election Twitter has taken a larger role in the political conversation. Trump has hired and fired people using Twitter, as well as using it to undermine people in his cabinet.
Rex Tillerson reportedly found out that he was being fired when he was informed about the tweet that President Trump sent out. He had no idea that he was losing his position until it happened. This is an unprecedented action by a president.
The US used to perform joint military exercises with South Korea. After meeting with the Kim Jong-un this summer President Trump decided to stop the joint exercises as a way to appease the North Koreans and convince them that the US is serious about building a political bond. General Mattis came out with a statement that the military had no immediate plans to halting any actions with South Korea. Trump then released a statement saying the US was indeed stopping the exercises in spite of Mattis.
As a result other politicians and political actors are starting to use Twitter as well. Some people who are gaining headlines for their Twitter use are Kellyanne Conway’s husband who is a stark critic of Trump, as well as Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team.
Rudy Giuliani posted a tweet and forgot to place a space between one sentence and the next. This created a hyper link to a website. Someone bought the domain name and created a web page mocking Trump.
In week one of the class we covered the basics of why media is important to politics. One key reason is to place a check on politicians to keep them from abusing power. The other is to give people enough information to be able to vote in an educated way. With Trump using Twitter both of these media roles have no place in his interactions with the people. When Trump tweets he bypasses the press and their ability to check his false statements. With Twitter he isn’t accountable to the press, and he is free to make false claims. These false claims also undermine the other purpose of the media. When there is no one to check the facts on the tweets from the president it is hard for the people to know who to trust. It has been a key strategy with the Trump administration to claim that the media lies.
In week eight the notes were about how Trump was the result of the idea of infotainment. He wasn’t a real candidate and didn’t run on a real or defined political platform. The media always had something new to report every news cycle and they received better ratings when they covered Trump over other candidates. This was the way that Trump was running his campaign and it has continued into how he runs his presidency. He has continued to hold campaign like rallies around the country that look a lot like pseudo-events.
The Trump campaign is in direct contrast to the 2008 Obama campaign we read about in “The Obama Victory.” In the book we learned about how the Obama campaign utilized multiple media platforms to reach as many people as possible. There were many targeted ads as well as ones that would appeal to the general public. The Trump campaign never tried to include a diverse voting base. He focused on the middle class white Americans and assumed (correctly) that the Republican base was already his. He gained more media attention or his scandalous actions than for his policies, and he left young people out of his focus. Obama was the opposite, a large portion of the people who voted for him were idealistic young people who wanted to see real change.
This class has helped me to better understand just how different the Trump presidency is from those of his predecessors. Part of this is due to the natural progression of technology and its easy use reaching a larger audience. It was also helpful to understand how the media has change in a way that basically begged for a candidate like Trump. Trump has changed politics with his presidency and I am curious to know if they change will last once he as left the White House.