The election is coming to a conclusion, now what?
This week, I attended WCNY-TV’s “Ivory Tower” Roundtable.
The even was hosted by Syracuse's Thursday Morning Roundtables and offered an open Zoom forum to discuss various current events. This past Thursday the election was the topic of choice. Dave Chanatry hosted Kristi Andersen, a Professor Emeritus of political science at Syracuse University, Nina Moore, a professor and chair of the political science department at Colgate University, Luke Perry, Ph.D., chair and professor of government at Utica College and director of the Utica College Center of Public Affairs and Election Research, and Robert J. Spitzer, Ph.D., a distinguished service professor and chair of the political science department at the State University of New York, College at Cortland. All of these professionals offered incredibly intelligent insight into the election. Each one brought a special skill to the table whether that be civil rights, knowledge of statistics, or history.
The conversation covered everything from polling disparities, local and senate elections, and, of course, the presidential election. Many members expressed their confusion at how close the election was. Most had assumed from polling information that Joe Biden was going to be winning by a comfortable margin by that point, but at the time the roundtable was held, the race was still anyone’s to win. Kristi Andersen cited the “Trumpist Alternative Reality” as a potential reason for the election to have been so close.
The "Trumpist Alternative Reality" in effect:
Credit: @realDonaldTrump on Twitter
The “Trumpist Alternative Reality” is the narrative that the Trump Administration, Fox News, and other conservative media outlets push. It encompasses five main tenets: a devaluation of the COVID-19 pandemic, job growth, economic growth, and Trump’s “excellent” handling of the pandemic, and a villainization of the left. Trump has instructed his supporters that despite what anyone else says, COVID is simply not that big of a deal. He has consistently downplayed the pandemic throughout 2020 and this tenet was one of the cornerstones of his campaign. Many
Trump supporters also cling to what he tells them about both job and economic growth. Despite the current state of the economy and the good economy Trump inherited, conservative media constantly claims that it was Trump, not Obama, that put America into the economic boom it was experiencing before COVID. This also directly correlates to Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Even though he ignored healthcare professionals and his own advisors, and threw out the pandemic plan Obama had clearly laid out, he and the conservative media still peddles the tale that Trump has handled the pandemic well. Lastly, Trump has made the left to be the enemy more so than any other president in recent memory. He has emboldened his supporters to further the divide between the right and the left through social media. Even further, the conservative media has also made out the left to be filled with criminals and anti-Americans.
The “Trumpist Alternative Reality” has divided this country and created a public relations crisis for Joe Biden and the Democratic party itself. I believe that only time and good candidates from both sides can truly fix the divide, however, I feel that Biden’s PR team can help patch the bleeding.
In the above video, Steve McIntosh discusses how to fix the political divide. He details that the first step is both sides coming to an understanding that they're essentially trying to accomplish the same things in different manners.
One way to tackle this from a PR standpoint is to go straight to the source- the media. is Oftentimes, I’ve found that the media on both sides of the political debate tend to use scare tactics over actual facts. For example, I’ve heard the phrase “socialized medicine” used in regards to Biden’s healthcare plan, when in reality, it isn’t even close to socialized medicine. If the Biden Administration wants to earn the support of the majority of the Republican party, they need to gear their explanations toward them. I believe Biden’s PR team needs to get his representatives on conservative media channels and contribute content to conservative media outlets. Methods similar to these have been used to divide the parties further, such as when Fox News will have a democrat come on a panel in order for them to be alienated by the republicans. However, I believe that if proper PR was used and neutral language was employed, this method could be used to unite the parties. Pete Buttigieg was featured on Fox quite a lot during the final months of the presidential campaign. However, the language he used was insulting to the network’s major demographic, and his voice went largely unheard. If Pete’s team had instead instructed him to be more neutral, I believe he could have swayed some viewers.
This country is divided, “Ivory Tower’s” Roundtable more than proved that. But I feel we must all do our part to respect people despite differing views. I find the debates that share facts rather than insults are the ones that change minds. I feel that the “Golden Rule” applies to effective PR just as much as it does in interpersonal interactions. If we all treat others as we wish to be treated, I feel we may be able to lessen the political gap together.
Sources:
"Ivory Tower" https://video.syr.edu/media/1_mum3em5u
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