Extra Credit Blog 11: Civic Engagement

Hair me out people, Donald Trump is the mane for you!

Make America great again! Give now to his campaign because he is a man who is severely struggling for money, being a rich billionaire heiress who is a television celebrity has really hit his pocket book hard. It is a promise made by him that his hair looks thick because it is where he hides all of his leadership qualities that will make him an excellent candidate for the US presidential office. He hides those qualities so well that the American people cannot even recognize any redeemable qualities of his character or moral compass. Don't worry he can hold his own among those foreign leaders who have adult sized hands. His small hands are respected among his peers and it also doesn’t hurt that he makes up for the hand issue with his huge pen…t house apartment. Many people are envious of his apartment and the wonderful food Trump Towers serves. If you donate today Trump will give all of his guests dining at Trump Towers complimentary tap water! (*ice is not included)

Donald is a man of the people, all people. He knows how to recognize the inequitable hurdles some may face due to their minority and intersecting identities. He is able to bring groups together. He is culturally respectful to each diverse community and he holds the utmost appreciation for immigration within the tossed salad that is the United States.

Donald Trump is humble. He is someone that does not gloat or brag about his successes. He would especially never do this after a sensitive situation where it would seem disrespectful and crude. Donald Trump acknowledges other opinions differing from his own and is able to have educated and tolerant discussions with others on his disagreements.

Donald Trump has a sense of humor. He understands that he will never have everyone like him as a candidate. He allows there to be funny remarks made about him in hopes of seeming likeable. Trump loves to laugh at himself and he whole knowingly understands that jokes are used for public entertainment. Trump looks up to those stars that bring humor to politics and celebrates in their creativity in trying to engage the public in political satire.

Donald Trump has a knack for knowing the latest celebrity gossip makes him really stand out as a candidate. No one really cares about universal healthcare, the economy, or foreign policy. They really want to know where Kim Kardashian vacationed and why Ryan Gosling drinks kale smoothies after his workouts. Our future in America is dependent upon being educated on the important matters and having a president that also promotes the importance of those issues really emphasizes his character as a leader of this nation.

So please do your civic duty and give any money you can to this campaign because as you know money is power and this already affluent old white man needs more power in modern day America. #OrangeLivesMatter

Blog 10: Press Coverage

The media is where the public learns about the government happenings. Going to government sources or doing research to find information first hand is time consuming and difficult so that is why news outlets are used because of accessibility and timeliness of pieces. However all news sources are not created equal, many sources have a clear and direct political opinion that will most likely influence the material they put on display. Depending on who is in control of the political party is dependent on what news will be seen or generated. Currently with Donald Trump in office it is highly anticipated that the news negatively picking at his every action will be more liberal leaning while news that inaccurately displays his successes will be more conservatively based. With Trump being such a polarizing character in politics he is talked about on most news sources I looked at regardless of political leanings, but again what is most recognized in differences across party lines is the content that is being displayed.

The more liberal left wing media source I used to seek out a news story from was Buzzfeed. This website is your typical trash news outlet that is more used for entertainment, but you also may be able to come to some semblance of understanding on a specific issue. The story on Buzzfeed was talking about the New England Patriot’s recent trip to the White House, but the greater emphasis was put on how starting quarterback Tom Brady was not in attendance. The story discussed that Brady was Trump’s favorite player  and good friend, which was attacked by Buzzfeed as to why he would be a no show if they were ‘buds’. Brady told the media he had a family commitment he needed to be in attendance for but this news article jumped to conclusions and depicted that the reasoning was due to Brady’s lack of support for the 45^th US president.

The more extremist conservative news outlet story I got was from the infamous train wreck that is Breitbart news. Breitbart is known for intolerant right winged rhetoric that usually speaks little to no truth. The story I saw was about how the US president Donald Trump and his chief strategist Steve Bannon made Time magazine’s top 100 most influential people. This is a typical fluff piece that is put on Breitbart in order to make Trump and his administration look good among the public. The story shares how much of an honor this is and how he is the one to change the status quo in DC like no other president has done before him.

The news outlet that I chose to gather a news story with the least amount of bias was from the Wall Street Journal. The news article found was discussing how Trump just signed legislation to extend a private care program for veterans. This story was very direct in displaying the facts with as little frill as possible. I also noticed that veteran care is a bipartisan issue that most if not all Americans fully support.

          From what I can tell, the media is setting the agenda and generating the news. Trump does not most likely particularly care that a member of the Patriot’s team did not attend on a visit to the White House. The media wants to portray the president and his administration in a light that is most beneficial to them gaining greater viewership from assessing the ideologies of their followers. The media has such a strong influence on what people think that it is to their benefit to set the agenda and put across material that reflects the position and direction of the news outlets intended purpose. The public is also very concerned with political image and news pieces that are more entertainment based so that really reflects in the framing of news and what is showed and what isn’t. Not all news stories can have prominent attention because of the large amount of news that is generated daily, so with the US being a public that is generally concerned with issues not as hard hitting it is common to see a many stories that deserve attention not get it. If I were advertising Trump I would of course want the pieces like Breitbart where it shows that Trump does no evil because it would help his tarnished image as a candidate and show his potential as a candidate. However showing this news would only be done to cover up the stories I would not want shared about Trump, which would not be a fair or an honest representation to the naïve and sometimes-gullible public.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/patriots-white-house-visit?utm_term=.xiBR1RVvK#.jcpgzgXZD

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-signs-legislation-extending-private-care-program-for-veterans-1492644471

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/04/20/donald-trump-steve-bannon-among-times-top-100-most-influential/

Blog 9: Agenda Setting

Donald Trump was a candidate within the Republican Party that was extremely controversial during the early stages of the race. It was confusing to many within the party if he was a true conservative that held those ideals and some of his recent actions in office are bringing those qualms to the surface.

Trump made many blanketed promises during the campaign that made him an attractive candidate to many conservatives that wanted change in DC. However, Trump has promised and said things that he wishes to do that he has fallen short of in the current time.

One of Trumps huge campaign draws was his immigration policy. Trump wanted a wall but there has not been much movement on that issue. There were also promises of repealing Obama Care on his first day in office, but rather than getting rid of it Trump prolong its existence. Trump also exclaimed that he would become better acquainted with the Russian president Vladmir Putin, this is not currently the status of the tense relationship we currently hold.

Trump comparatively speaking to his other running mates in the 2016 republican primary were mostly compatible on issues. I chose to contrast Trump and his best friend (jk) Jeb Bush. Trump and Bush sparred with each other during the campaign. Some glaring differences in their platforms were that Jeb refused to sign a pledge to oppose all tax increases, which was not taken well by conservatives. He also is a big proponent of the common core, which is an education system that is highly contested among the Republican Party. I think these two candidates differed on some aspects of their platforms because Jeb was pinned as someone who was more moderate and Trump really geared his campaign to those who were on the far right. I think Trump tried to spark interest in voters by spewing rhetoric that was charged and at some times intolerant of others.

Currently the top issues being discussed in the news are about foreign defense, healthcare, and the economy. These issues are what is effecting the country at this time which causes them to be top news stories, but they are also stories that are being set by the media. The media sets the agenda and frames what the public talks about. Most of the media is run by a small handful of people, with so much of the viewing material being controlled by so few it really causes a lot of the material to be framed in a way that doesn’t conflict with the fortune 500 companies or the special interest groups that have ‘skin in the game’.  

Trump sparked a lot of interest on the campaign trail. He said some things that really drove home the idea of his conservative values but his past actions echoed different leftist ideals. The American public trusted him with the presidency to do things that they wanted accomplished while he is in office and that is yet to be seen. I am personally still confused as to what his platform is and it seems that his time in office will be quite unpredictable.

http://www.cbsnews.com/media/jeb-bush-what-does-he-stand-for/4/

https://web.archive.org/web/20161101083815/https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/education/

https://news.google.com/news?cf=all&pz=1&ned=us&siidp=39944d844ffc7abbb02ec158a6d7441af0f7&ict=ln&ar=1492230060

Blog 8: Pop Culture and Politics

Pop culture and satire media really can have a large impact on the way people view others, especially those who are in politics. The pop culture that the public is exposed to is another way for someone to push more campaign material without the public really being aware that they are being exposed to such material. Since the media in the current age is more liberal it was evident that the republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would be the topic of many late night and SNL jokes.

The artifact from pop culture that I used was a skit from a Saturday Night Live episode. This was an opening skit that portrayed Trump’s first presidential elect press conference. The

ever so funny Alec Baldwin played Donald Trump. Alec really embodies Trump and emphasizes some of his characteristics in order to really make the audience aware of these exaggerations when observing Trump’s actions in reality throughout the campaign and his political career.

This SNL video and many other SNL skits with Alec Baldwin playing Trump all have a pattern of how Trump is portrayed. Alec has the orange skin and the fluffed up hair that looks like a wig but is apparently not a wig while he wears the red power tie and navy blue suit. Image may be viewed as unimportant, however his image and other candidate’s images are what they are identified by. Trump’s get-up was the tagline for many jokes, which was something that took away from his and Hillary Clinton’s platform. The emphasis and importance placed upon a candidate’s image is extremely superficial, but it is a facet that the audience and media gravitate towards for placing judgment.

In this clip from SNL they recreate a moment that is crucial to the president elect’s political timeline. This is the moment that he is being asked to represent all Americans while being able to articulate reasoning for some of his early actions that were taken. In the address itself Baldwin tries to convey to the audience Trump’s use of short charged phrases and his ability to get questions from the media and completely spin what he would talk about to fit his agenda. Baldwin takes on Trumps facial expressions and hand gestures.The SNL skit also emphasizes Trumps inability to speak in eloquent phrases, his rhetoric is more common to lower educated individuals.

This SNL satire piece takes away from the image Trump would assume want to protect. Throughout the entirety of the presidential campaign Trump definitely had some not so great media coverage. The SNL skit I think mostly shows Trump as a caricature figure that doesn’t seem real. He is like the cockroach that never died within the campaign and I think his success as a candidate was underestimated because of how he was represented in the media prior to running. I don’t think that pieces like this SNL one really severely hurt him however. After all of the media and pop culture out there he was still victorious which I think goes to show how the public uses these outlets for entertainment but know better than to judge a candidates legitimacy from this type of media.

This clip does effectively change the way people perceive Donald Trump. Alec Baldwin does do things within his characterization that Trump does as well, but by focusing on the lesser important nuances of Trumps characterization and making his press conferences and speeches a joke it takes away from any validity that his points he made may have had. Exaggerations in media on political figures in some ways are like a magic trick. The magician leads the audience to something he wants the audience to look at while with a slight of hand hiding the facets of a characterization that may be a positive attribute.