The Campaign Decoder – Issue 7

A Weekly Online Magazine to Understand the 2016 US Presidential Elections

Made by 1st Year Students in the English Department at Rouen University
with a little help from Prof. Peter Marquis.

http://thecampaigndecoder.weebly.com

The Stop Trump Issue
#7. March 23, 2016

A rally on an Arizona highway protesting Trump backed up traffic Saturday. — A rally on an Arizona highway protesting Trump backed up traffic on March 19.

The News These Past Week:
1. “The Hectic Meetings”
2. “Updates on the Race to the Nomination”
What to Look At in the Coming Week: “Is Donald Trump Stoppable?”
Background Check: “#7. Women in US Politics”
Media Watch: “Reactions to Violence at Trump Meetings”
Cartoon of the Week: “Titan Trump and his Wall”

The editors-in-chief for this issue were Anicée Renouf and Emma Audinot.
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Publisher’s note: all the articles were researched, written and proofread by students. It is their original work. Plagiarism check was done using Urkund. The pieces of information in parenthesis were added by the publisher for clarity. If you have any questions or comments, write us here. We value your feedback.

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The News This Past Week:

By Anaïs Meurie and Thibault Guillerme.

1. The Hectic Meetings

Afficher l'image d'origine — An activist is removed by police at a Donald Trump rally in Chicago, March 11, 2016. Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images http://goo.gl/XIWGgK

During the different meetings of Donald Trump, “anti-Trump” people came to attack the supporters because they think that Trump is dangerous for the United States. The opponents used signs against the candidate, so there was a confrontation between “Anti-Trump” and “Pro-Trump.” Donald Trump has not stopped the violence against him and his supporters and he said that he “will be ready to pay the court costs for his supporters” via Twitter.

2. Updates on the race to the nomination

Despite that, Donald Trump came first in 4 states over 5 (Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Missouri). With this “Mega Tuesday” the number of Trump’s delegates is now 673. He needs 564 more delegates to win nomination. Is he likely to win? Maybe not, in spite of his results, citizens who voted for him during the primaries are not obliged to vote for Trump during the convention. They are free of their vote, so it could happen a turn-around against Donald Trump.

On the Democrat’s side, Hillary Clinton won in 5 states (Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio) beating Bernie Sanders whose results were very close. She’s now at 1,214 Democratic delegates.

dele count 23 march — NYT, March 23, 2016. http://goo.gl/3MzIsh

Rubio Out: one less candidate for the GOP

After losing facing Donald Trump, Marco Rubio announced that he stopped his presidential campaign. What he did not appreciate is the fact of losing his home state, Florida. In Miami, he said “After tonight it is clear that while we are on the right side, (but) we will not be on the winning side”. The one who was considered the best to conquer Donald Trump deserted the elections.

Sources :

http://www.npr.org/2016/03/15/470596163/mega-tuesday-results-poised-to-reshape-presidential-race http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/primary-calendar-and-results.html?ref=politics&_r=1 http://www.huffingtonpost.fr/2016/03/12/video-violence-donald-trump-chicago_n_9446324.html

What to Look At in the Coming Week:

Is Donald Trump Stoppable?

By Audrey Daniel and Sarah de Barbeyrac

During the following weeks, there will be the primaries and caucuses in different states. On the 22nd of March, the states of Arizona, Idaho and Utah are concerned. In Idaho, it will be the Democratic caucus since the Republican one was on March, 8. There will also be the American Samoa Republican Convention. For the Democratic party in Arizona, the forecasts are in favor of Hillary Clinton. Concerning the Republican party, Donald Trump is largely leading the polls. In Utah, Bernie Sanders is leading for the Democrats and for the Republicans, it is Ted Cruz.

Donald Trump becomes more and more popular with the citizens. However, the GOP (Grand Old Party) wants to stop him during the convention (which takes place in July) because they fear that he will not win the electoral vote against Hillary Clinton.

Party insiders are searching for ways to stop Donald Trump. They would like to see Ted Cruz or John Kasich to represent the party. They are ready to use controversial moves to reach their goal, it would be called a “contested convention” (it is a convention where candidates do not have a majority of delegates at the end of the caucuses). There is a great chance for Donald Trump to have the 1,237 delegates he needs to win this but the move of the party insiders would be to avoid that.

If Donald Trump has a lot of delegates but no majority, others candidates can be willing to take his place or stop him from winning in two ways: firstly, candidates who drop out (for any reason) the election can ask their delegates to support another candidate so that he gets more importance. Secondly, candidates “can wait until the second ballot, when delegates are no longer bound to a candidate and all bets are off” as Ben Kamisar from The Hill wrote. Moreover, the GOP can play with the rules of the voting process in the convention to get what they want (because a political party is a private association whose rules can be changed by the association’s board)

SOURCES :

Background Check

#7: Women in US Politics

By Laëtitia Appert and Ambre Hémoulin

Hillary Clinton is leading the polls in the Democratic primary and by the end of the year the United States may be one of the few countries which have a woman as head of State. Women represent 51% of the U.S. population, yet American women are still underrepresented in elected offices all across the nation.

Currently, 114 women have a seat within the federal government, this number only represents 20,9% of the 546 people of this government. Concerning the executive branch, there are only 7 women in Cabinet positions. Congress, which represents the legislative branch, has 535 seats but only 104 women occupy them. For the judicial branch, 3 women have seats in Supreme Court.

Abigail Adams was the wife of John Adams, the second President of the United States. She was ahead of her time because she was fighting for women to be part of the political life: “remember the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors”.

This underrepresentation is also a matter of negative self-perception and self-doubt among women. Women in the U.S don’t have many role models in politics; it can be an obstacle to their implication in this domain. Social conditioning is the social structure in which an individual finds his influences and can determine his social actions and responses. In the United States, women are not raised to become politicians, that’s one of the reasons why they are so underrepresented in this domain.

However, a YouGov poll dated March 2015 said that American people are ready for a female president in 2016. They are actually more ready to elect a woman as President than they were eight years ago, when Hillary Clinton was already candidate but ended her campaign in June 2008.

Sources:

Media Watch:

World Reactions to Violence at Trump Rallies

By Martin Lerebourg and Maud LD

Last Saturday in the evening at Trump’s meeting in Tuscon, Arizona, violence erupted between the candidate’s protesters and supporters. Meanwhile, the Washington Post published an article entitled “Trump has lit a fire. Can it be contained?” pointing at the level of ugliness the campaign has reached and keeps reaching with every new scandal surrounding the candidate.

Bryan Sanders the anti-Trump supporter punched at the meeting was interviewed about this event by NBC News. He said he understood the supporter’s reaction: “I don’t blame that man. He is the product of a violent political movement,” but expressed his concern about a Trump’s presidency: “How is ge going to shut down dissent when he is president?”

watch the video

According to Corine Lesnes a correspondent in San Francisco for the French newspaper Le Monde, Trump’s audience assembled in the arena as if expecting to watch a game. Lesnes also reminds readers of the candidate’s behaviour when he demanded the audience to take oath of allegiance: “Raise your right hand !”. A hand gesture with a certain connotation.

https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_606w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/03/14/Interactivity/Images/salute1457975650.jpg — Washington Post. https://goo.gl/SG0A5B

As a matter of fact, in an interview published by the Excelsior a Mexican newspaper, President Enrique Pena Nieto compared Trump to famous dictators: “That’s the way Mussolini arrived and the way Hitler arrived.”

China’s Global Times also reacted by comparing the candidate to those dictators who ‘‘came to power through elections” meaning and pointing out how much democracy represents a waste of time and lot of fear for them, shocked as they were that such violence had occurred in a country owning a developed and perfected electoral system. The Chinese journalists went as far as saying that Trump has opened Pandora’s box.

In France, ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy told his mixed feelings about Donald Trump on the social networks. Indeed, he feels frightened by the man’s sayings and ideas but at the same time, he thinks that people shouldn’t fear debates because it avoids the concept of “unique thought”.

In the meantime, the Dutch newspaper De Volkstrant published a website, playful way to raise awareness among American citizens about Trump’s constant changing of opinions and discrepancies so as to “Find out which Donald Trump suits you best.” (Try the test from De Volkskrant: here)

Finally, according to an article from British newspaper The Independent viewers can’t get enough of “the circus,” and the journalist also states that while the billionaire might not augur a bright future for America, he really is good news for TV networks and other medias, bringing around an incredible amount of money.

Sources:

To go further:

Learn about the reactions of the people ancestrally related to Donald Trump: click here
See explicit covers magazines from around the world: take a look

Cartoon of the Week: Titan Trump and the Wall

by Dhoye Jérémie & Desombre Amélie

attackontrumpcartoonheader — Photo : Tokyo Shinbun via Otaku USA (http://goo.gl/jBZxlu)

In this cartoon published by Tech Time magazine, Trump is depicted as a titan (which is a reference to the famous Japanese anime Attack on Titan) trying to climb over a wall in front of two Japanese people, to show his great will to build an extra-border wall between Mexico and the USA.

The two Japanese people at the bottom left-hand corner say: “It’d be pretty bad if he actually becomes president, right?” The man standing beside him responds by saying “Nah, the Titans of Asia will protect us.” This cartoon shows that not only some American citizens are against him, but also some foreign countries who do not agree with his political ideas.

Donald Trump who is running a campaign for the US presidential as the front runner of the Republican party, is also well-known for his numerous outlandish speeches. In order to struggle against immigration, and according to Tech Time Magazine “the Republican front-runner for 2016’s presidential race wants to build a massive wall across the U.S. southern border with Mexico.”

Donald Trump is at the heart of several protests against him due to his anti-immigration policy, which is very close to racism. Moreover according to Trump, illegal immigrants are “rapists” and accused of increasing terrorism. This wall arouses lots of reactions first because he wants to deport illegal immigrants, that is to say resend them to their country and forbid them to return to the USA, and second because he announced that the wall had to be paid by Mexicans.

However, according to Fox News, this policy made lots of people acting against him, it’s the reason why protesters recently blocked Donald Trump’s access on the highway in Arizona, where 30% of the population is Hispanic. This wall, according to Trump, will allow to stop illegal immigration which is massive in Arizona, and to stop illegal trade (i.e. narcotics) coming from Mexico in order to keep the USA as a “great” as he often says in his speeches.