Position Paper No.3: Social Media
Donald J. Trump was born June 14, 1946. He is married to his third
wife Melania Trump and is also a father of five. Prior to Trump’s entry into
politics he was known for being a billionaire businessman and television
personality and award-winning author. In the summer of 2015, he announced his
candidacy for the Presidency. Approximately a year later in 2016, Trump
accepted the nomination from the Republican party for President of the United
States. By the end of the same year Donald Trump became the 45th President of
the United States. He is now running for a second term as president, again
Democratic party candidate Joseph Biden. Trump has always been known as being
an opinionated man, but over the last five years people all over the world have
seen Trump’s social media spew over with his strong opinionated speech and
campaign ads, both good and bad.
Joseph (“Joe”) R. Biden Jr. was born November 20, 1942. He is
married to his second wife Dr. Jill Biden and is also a father of four
children. Biden is no stranger to politics, prior to his time in the White
House he was one of the youngest United States senator’s to date. He also broke
the record for being the longest serving senator in Delaware. From 2009-2016
Joe Biden served as the 47th vice president of the United States under
President Barack Obama. In April of 2019, Biden announced that was running for
the office of the president in 2020. More than a year later he announced his
running mate for Vice President, Kamala Harris. A Clark Atlanta University alum
as well as member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. Biden has certainly become
more active on his social media since the start of his campaign, but he on the
other hand seems to focus more on events and issues that happen and not so much
the controversial media that his opponent seems to choose.
When running for a political office especially the President of
the United States being connected with the voters is very important. Voters
want to feel connected with the candidates as well as informed. In this
election in particular social media has played a large part making sure that it
happened. With COVID-19 pandemic that we have been battling for the majority of
2020, in the United States lots of the typical rallies and meet and greets were
cancelled to keep everyone safe and socially distant.
Social media has played a large part this current election as a way for the candidates to appeal to voters. I must say that Donald Trump and Joe Biden certainly do not share similar social media presences. Granted for the last four years Trump has been the president of the United States, so people naturally have been attracted to his social media. He has _ followers on his twitter account alone. Even before he was named the 45th President Donald Trump had quite the following on his social media and was known for his opinionated statements. Just this year alone, we have seen Trump take to his social media addressing millions of his followers concerning the Coronavirus pandemic, while referring to it as “the China virus”. In a country riddled with racial tensions, he only added matter by insinuating that the Chinese were the cause of a worldwide pandemic that we did not yet have an abundance of knowledge about. Switch forward to present day, and the US has had more than ten million cases and China has only had approximately ninety thousand cases to date. Early people were concerned that Trump’s “reckless” tweets would lead to excess controversy and division among Americans. After the death of George Floyd, rather than acknowledging the life lost, he was more focused on shaming state governors for not being violent and forceful with peaceful protesters. One of his tweets was even removed by twitter because it "violated the Twitter rules about glorifying violence." Many times, it seems that some of his most controversial tweets are the ones drawn by people to his social media. From their they can examine his pages and platforms for themselves and determine whether he’s a candidate that they would like to vote for and support. Now I will say that he has a way of talking to his supporters that makes it seem like they have so much power. He has built up his supporters so much, perhaps that is why we have seen “Trump trains” and various demonstrations taking place throughout the country.
Joe Biden does have a social media presence, however his approach is rather different. Biden has just over thirty million subscribers on his twitter account and this number has been steadily growing as the campaign continues. He twitter followers have grown in the millions Biden has always been open about his story and showing he is also a person who goes through things just like everyone else. On his social media we see himself out there and showing up to various events supporting the causes that he plans to change if elected president. Over the last few months Biden has used his social media to encourage people to register to vote and exercise their right to vote. He was updating his followers are polling changes or updates based on their states. Due to the long lines at various polling locations he encouraged people to stay in the lines even if it was after hours. He also made these posts in Spanish as well to ensure that they could reach as many people as possible. Now there were also moment when Biden used his social media to do set the record straight after the chaotic debate against Donald Trump. The two have differing ways of approaching their followers they both have done well in utilize their social media to further their campaigns and endeavors as politicians.
WORKS CITED PAGE
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2018/10/10/president-trumps-use-social-media-and-why-we-cant-ignore-it-opinion
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