US Presidential Election Research Articles

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

There is no capitalist conspiracy and the rich are not all‐powerful

The Trump vote and Covid-19 vaccination across US states, US counties, and Connecticut towns

ABSTRACT In the United States over the past 40 years national issues and allegiances have increasingly displaced state and local concerns and identities in shaping the preferences of voters and the internal processes of political parties. This study finds that such nationalization has also manifested itself in health-related behaviour, specifically in the takeup of Covid-19 vaccines. Despite the heterogeneities of US states, counties, and towns, the share of the vote that Trump received in the 2020 US presidential election is found at each level to be a strong and robust predictor of a lower June 2022 Covid-19 vaccination initiation rate, even after adjusting for sociodemographic composition, spatial effects, and diverse provisioning- and takeup-related factors. At each of the three subnational levels, the Trump 2020 vote share was also correlated more closely than the Trump 2016 vote share or the Romney 2012 vote share with the June 2022 Covid-19 vaccination initiation rate.

Do foreign exchange administration rules strengthen the currency value? Policy lessons from an emerging market

After the announcement of the US presidential election result on 8 November 2016, many ASEAN currencies became volatile relative to the US Dollar (USD). Despite being an emerging market, Malaysia took an unprecedented step. It implemented new rules in December 2016 to halt the decline of the Malaysian Ringgit (MYR). Under the new rules, exporters must convert 75 per cent of export proceeds from foreign currency to local currency with a licensed financial institution. Using the sample period from September 2015 to July 2018, this study examined the impact of the Supplementary Notice on Foreign Exchange Administration (FEA) rules on MYR. Our study revealed, first, that despite the initial uneasiness of Multinational Companies (MNCs), the FEA rules effectively strengthened the MYR against the USD and other major currencies; second, the rule mitigated the depreciation of FDI and crude oil price on MYR; third, the results were robust in terms of model specification and estimation. The policy suggestion is made that the export conversion rule should be applied to foreign firms in Malaysia and domestic oil exporters, as it would mitigate the depreciation impact of the increase in FDI and crude oil price. Malaysia's experience provides policy lessons for emerging economies to emulate when facing unexpected exchange rate volatility.

Sentiment, we-talk and engagement on social media: insights from Twitter data mining on the US presidential elections 2020

PurposeGiven inconsistent results in prior studies, this paper applies the dual process theory to investigate what social media messages yield audience engagement during a political event. It tests how affective cues (emotional valence, intensity and collective self-representation) and cognitive cues (insight, causation, certainty and discrepancy) contribute to public engagement.Design/methodology/approachThe authors created a dataset of more than three million tweets during the 2020 United States (US) presidential elections. Affective and cognitive cues were assessed via sentiment analysis. The hypotheses were tested in negative binomial regressions. The authors also scrutinized a subsample of far-famed Twitter users. The final dataset, scraping code, preprocessing and analysis are available in an open repository.FindingsThe authors found the prominence of both affective and cognitive cues. For the overall sample, negativity bias was registered, and the tweet’s emotionality was negatively related to engagement. In contrast, in the sub-sample of tweets from famous users, emotionally charged content produced higher engagement. The role of sentiment decreases when the number of followers grows and ultimately becomes insignificant for Twitter participants with many followers. Collective self-representation (“we-talk”) is consistently associated with more likes, comments and retweets in the overall sample and subsamples.Originality/valueThe authors expand the dominating one-sided perspective to social media message processing focused on the peripheral route and hence affective cues. Leaning on the dual process theory, the authors shed light on the effectiveness of both affective (peripheral route) and cognitive (central route) cues on information appeal and dissemination on Twitter during a political event. The popularity of the tweet’s author moderates these relationships.

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

"What did they say?" Network analysis of Twitter quotes @JoeBiden and @realDonaldTrump during 2020 United States presidential election (second debate)

A 2 million-person, campaign-wide field experiment shows how digital advertising affects voter turnout.

We present the results of a large, US$8.9 million campaign-wide field experiment, conducted among 2 million moderate- and low-information persuadable voters in five battleground states during the 2020 US presidential election. Treatment group participants were exposed to an 8-month-long advertising programme delivered via social media, designed to persuade people to vote against Donald Trump and for Joe Biden. We found no evidence that the programme increased or decreased turnout on average. We found evidence of differential turnout effects by modelled level of Trump support: the campaign increased voting among Biden leaners by 0.4 percentage points (s.e. = 0.2 pp) and decreased voting among Trump leaners by 0.3 percentage points (s.e. = 0.3 pp) for a difference in conditional average treatment effects of 0.7 points (t1,035,571 = -2.09; P = 0.036; [Formula: see text] points; 95% confidence interval = -0.014 to 0). An important but exploratory finding is that the strongest differential effects appear in early voting data, which may inform future work on early campaigning in a post-COVID electoral environment. Our results indicate that differential mobilization effects of even large digital advertising campaigns in presidential elections are likely to be modest.

Explicating the public memory dialectic in public relations: The case of Donald Trump, The Oath Keepers, and January 6, 2021

The public relations practice participates in making, shaping, telling, and interpreting societal memory to influence issue positions and related actions. That claim implies several themes. One, societal memory is a useful concept for understanding the strategic processes of meaning and meaning making, narratives which constitute society. Two, the content of their prevailing memories shapes the choices individuals make separately and collectively. Public relations’ centrality to societal memory remains an underappreciated and underexplored research area. Scholars have explored the role public relations plays in societal memory by examining, for instance, the textuality of art as well as memorials and statues, their erection and erasure. To better understand this process, scholarship needs to examine strategic public relations efforts to “blur” societal memory as a means of creating alternative versions (revisionist history) of lived truth, values, norms, and policies. After examining memory, including blurring, we use the January 6, 2021 United States presidential election (Congressional Certification) Capitol “protest event” to demonstrate how blurring occurs and its potential adverse implications. We suggest and conceptualize in a model that societal memory occurs as a dialectic; some etched version of history (i.e., thesis) comes under question (i.e., antithesis), and through either a process of blurring, erasure, or retention, that etched history is then muddied, expunged, or lives on (i.e., synthesis). Meaning matters in the enactment and critical assessment of public relations’ role in societal agency.

ЕПОХА ПОСТПРАВДИ У СУЧАСНОМУ СВІТІ: ВИТОКИ ТА ПРИЧИНИ

The article is devoted to the era of post-truth as a phenomenon of socio-political discourse and practice, when the truth or falsity of facts and judgments is ignored. The beginning of the post-truth era is usually associated with 2016, namely the referendum and the Brexit procedure, and the US presidential election (due directly to the figure of D. Trump). The post-truth era refers to a situation where politics is completely built on lies that do not arouse public condemnation. The manifestation of these signs among democratic countries is a feature. The use of the policy of “alternative facts” is part of the state policy of such authoritarian countries as China, Russia, Belarus, etc., but its manifestation in a democratic society is atypical. The philosophical origins of the post-truth era lie in the theory of subjective relativism, which denies the existence of absolute, objective truth and emphasizes that the status of truth depends on individual judgments, experiences, and cultural conditions. In the context of relativism, science is only one point of view on the world, which has the same force and influence of arguments as religion, myths, judgments and personal experience of the average person. The concept of equality of opinions and points of view is intertwined with the problem of the limits of freedom of speech: should society really broadcast different opinions regardless of evidence. Limited or unlimited freedom of speech is the problem? Characteristic features of post-truth are: a) ignoring objective facts in reporting; b) appealing to the values and beliefs of the individual; c) using emotional pressure to argue one’s position. The post-truth era is actually characterized by the construction of an alternative reality, which is associated with a number of phenomena: fake news, accent framing, clickbait, information hype, opinion journalism, etc. It is justified that the emergence and development of the post-truth era is determined by technological, political, philosophical and informational factors. In this article it was reviewed how the post-truth era affects the political, educational, scientific and other spheres, which significantly reduces their effectiveness. The highlighted sentence is not a clear or complete sentence. Disinformation as part of the post-truth is a significant challenge for ordinary citizens.

Following Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: A Dissection of their Tweets in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Following Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump: A Dissection of their Tweets in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Die Stärke der Europäischen Union nach der „Zeitenwende“

This article analyses the strength and resilience of the European Union (EU) after the “Zeitenwende”. The completely new situation of threat emanating from Russia did not lead to the EU falling apart, as might have been expected. To the contrary, it resulted in a community reflex of member states moving closer together and supporting Ukraine actively in its fight for survival, despite a certain leadership weakness of the Franco-German couple. In addition, the EU is reacting in a way with extensive military aid and joint procurement of ammunition that was unthinkable two or three years ago. However, the EU and its member states are lacking a strategy on how to contribute to terminating the war. Such a strategy would be urgently needed in order not to become unravelled between a bellicose Russia and a potentially less Atlantic-minded America after the US presidential election at the end of 2024.

Strano mešanje u izbore kao hibridna pretnja nacionalnoj bezbednosti - predsednički izbori u SAD 2016. i 2020. godine

The second decade of the twenty-first century was marked by an expansion of interest in hybrid threats to national security. Foreign election interference became actual during the 2016 US presidential elections. As one of the modalities of subversive activities, foreign election interference faced a practical transformation along with the development of new technologies and the expansion of the social networks' influence. The hybrid character of foreign election interference is shown both in the fact that it can be realized in physical cyberspace by state or non-state actors. This hybrid threat is limited only by the imagination of its creators and the ability of its implementers. 2016 and 2020 United States presidential elections have shown that countries with the most complex security systems are not able to predict where the hybrid threat will realize. The author concludes that foreign election interference will remain actual in contemporary international relations, because of avoiding direct armed confrontation in gaining dominance in the interest zones of great and regional powers.

Финансово-бюджетная политика как инструмент реализации страте-гических приоритетов США

The relevance of the article is due to the transitional period of the development of the world community in modern conditions, when Western states are mak-ing all possible, often illegitimate attempts to maintain their dominance in the world. The instrument for implementing the strategic plans of Western coun-tries in the long term is mainly the US federal budget as a means of implement-ing strategic priorities, regardless of which party wins the US presidential elec-tion. The subject of the article is the system of financial and economic relations in the United States, aimed at implementing the strategic priorities of U.S. economic policy for a long time. In modern conditions, this is the reindustrialization of the national economy along with the fulfillment of tasks to ensure social sup-port and protection of the population, as well as to maintain dominance in the world community, and at any cost, including by rewriting the so-called no-where approved rules of the world order and the formation of coalitions of countries that share the political views of American politicians and economists who advocate planting a "moral" economy in the world and promoting its val-ues. The article analyzes the strategic economic priorities of D. Trump's policy and the last budget message of President J. Biden in 2023, identifies elements of continuity and reflects the specifics of the reindustrialization of America. Con-clusions are drawn about the continued growth of the US federal budget deficit, indicating the continuation of the implementation of the "life on loan" model in the economy, which is based on the dollar performing the functions of the world currency, a means of settlement and accumulation.

Pussy Hats, Politics, and Public Protest

Pussy Hats, Politics, and Public Protest

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROMOTION STRATEGY AND ITS BASIC TACTICS IN THE PROCESS OF H. CLINTON AND D. TRUMP ELECTION DEBATES

Objective. The objective of the present article is an analysis of illustrative materials of the leading debates of candidates for the post of the President of the United States of America H. Clinton and D. Trump for the purpose of tactful implementation of the strategy for promotion as one of the most effective and most actual benefits of the manipulative discourse field. Methods. The main scientific results are obtained applying a set of general and special research methods, namely: analysis of video and audio materials of election debates, comparison, synthesis, systematization and generalization of scientific literature. Results. In political communication, any strategy is aimed at restructuring the political views of the addressee, at changing his attitude to certain facts, people and events. Political discourse does not have exclusively unique language strategies, but it demonstrates selectivity in the choice of linguistic means depending on their effectiveness in the conditions of a particular communicative situation. In an election campaign, the goal of any candidate is to gain the support of voters. For this, either the strategy of praising “their” candidate or the strategy of discrediting other candidates and parties and views in the eyes of voters is used. Texts of pre-election speeches of US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are chosen as illustrative material for the study of strategies of manipulative influence. In our research, we use the classification of strategies and tactics of manipulative influence, which is proposed by O. Mykhaliova, because this classification most fully describes the entire range of language and speech manipulation tools applied by politicians. It is outlined that both candidates for the position of the President of the United States use strategies for promotion, which are implemented with the help of appropriate tactics. The promotion strategy is represented by such tactics as analysis-“plus”, presentation, self-presentation, demonstration of professional success, promises and self-praise.