Traditional political communication and the rise of social media
Traditional political communication is characterized by a top-down model of progression with little dialogue. In short, the politician speaks and the citizenry listens. However, social media has risen as a new contemporary form of communication available for political use. Compared to the traditional, hierarchical form of communication, social media opens the opportunity for the regular citizenry to hold a dialogue with their elected officials that would otherwise not be possible.
However, some politicians abuse social media for their own political gain. One politician that potentially poses the most danger through his use of social media is President Donald J. Trump. Examples of his social media abuse ranges from retweeting white supremacist groups, encouraging violence amongst his supporters to condoning the actions of American ultranationalists (commonly known as neo-Nazis). Supporters of the president refer to these actions as President Trump engaging in “4D chess”, which is meant to infer that Trump has a deeper intent to these actions beyond what is initially visible on the surface. However, I will argue Trump’s political use of Twitter is slowly normalizing both the existence of such groups. To this end, I will analyze examples of Trump’s provocative use of social media, support of Trump amongst identified hate groups, the incidence rate of racially motivated crimes since he took office, and the immense power of precedence he wields as President.
President Trump’s use of Twitter and its implications
There is no question that President Trump has embraced social media as an organic extension of his administration. One only needs to look at the use of his personal account @RealDonaldTrump versus the official presidential account @POTUS. The latter is effectively used as a second page for @RealDonaldTrump through @POTUS’s retweets of President Trump’s personal account. However, despite his claims, President Trump’s behavior in the context of his personal Twitter account is not presidential. He has mocked the appearance of journalists and has posted memes of himself on his account (Wells). Another shocking example of his departure from traditional expectations of presidential behavior, and the initial point of inspiration for this paper, is his retweet of a white supremacy group:
Trump’s support among hate groups
"@WhiteGenocideTM: @realDonaldTrump Poor Jeb. I could've sworn I saw him outside Trump Tower the other day! https:\/\/twitter.com\/WhiteGenocideTM\/status\/69056013704 0400384\/photo\/1pic.twitter.com\/e5uLRubqla\"
At the time, Trump was a candidate in the Republican primary. Regardless, having a history of interacting, and indirectly condoning, with white supremacist groups as the President of the United States is spectacularly inappropriate. His interaction with such groups only gives them credence (however untrue that credibility may be) in the public and international eye.
Increase in hate groups and hate crimes under Trump’s presidency
American hate groups like the Ku Klux Klan have found a champion in President Trump. His indirect support and attractive anti-immigrant, pro-Christian, and pro-white policies have drawn the attention of many groups who believe themselves the saviors of an America “ruined” by immigrants and non-Christians. Matthew Heimbach, cofounder of the Traditionalist Workers Party, states the reason for pro-Trump sentiment amongst the leagues of hate groups and white nationalists:
“We have the potential to reach truly millions of people with our message of European culture of faith, family, and folk—and solidarity—that the Republicans could never reach. We have the potential to be able to work with so many of these millions of families to be able to then move them in our direction. Donald Trump is a gateway drug…we can then move them from civic nationalism and populism to nationalism for us—and these people are ready for our message.”
President Trump’s policies may be attractive to hate groups, but the president is first and foremost a tool to drive recruitment to their message. In the year following President Trump’s inauguration, twenty-two new neo-Nazis groups, thirteen new anti-Muslim groups, and eight new anti-immigrant groups formed (Beirich and Buchanan). Detractors would critique that the overall growth of new groups was minuscule at only 4% but fail to realize that each of these new groups could reasonably contain dozens to the low hundreds. Ultimately, Trump has inspired thousands of new radicals to openly flout their beliefs to the public.
The “Trump Effect” and the rise of hate crimes
President Trump’s popularization of hate doesn’t stop at hate groups taking up support of Trump. These same hate groups have also gone on to increase their activities nationwide in the window of opportunity created by Trump: According to crime statistics released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the day following Trump’s election saw a tripling of hate crimes compared to the daily average. Dr. Edwards Rushin and Dr. Griffin Edwards of Loyola University and University of Alabama, respectively, note that the final quarter of 2016 did not follow the traditional cyclic trend of hate crimes, but continued to increase into the first quarter of 2017. This disruption in the cyclical nature of hate crimes is the first since the Federal Bureau of Investigation began collecting data in 1992 and coincides with Trump’s electoral victory. Not only does the spike in hate crimes run counter to expectations yearly, but it also breaks the national norm of annually decreasing crime rates (Edwards and Rushin). Dubbing it the “Trump Effect”, Edwards and Rushin find that Trump’s influence on acts of hate are incredibly significant:
“The Trump Effect is over 25 times larger than the effect on hate crimes after terror attacks like those in Orlando, Florida or San Bernardino, California. While it does not rival the spike in hate crimes after September 11th, there is evidence to suggest the Trump Effect contributed to a statistically significant uptick in the number of hate crimes rivaled by few other events in modern American history.”
Pro-Trump supporters may argue that hate crimes are usually expanded to include leaflets and vandalism such as spray-painting to property, which could then be expanded on as to be defined as not a “real” hate crime. However, hate crime statistics gathered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation reveal that vandalism to property, including destruction, construe little more than 25 percent of incidents and offensive materials like leaflets were not deemed statistically significant enough to be included in the report. To ignore the increase in hate crime under the President Trump’s guidance is to ignore the obvious.
The immense power of precedence
Ignoring the rise of violence under Trump, ignoring even the endorsement of hate groups, one of the most powerful abilities the president wields is that of precedence. The actions of one president can determine the acceptability of that action in the context of all future presidents. Some of the best known examples of presidential precedence revolve around President George Washington, who set precedence for swearing the oath of office upon a religious text, the annual State of the Union Address, and, most importantly, the two-term limit for presidential office (until the FDR administration forced the limit to be drafted into constitutional authority).
However, presidential actions do not always set precedence that is as favorable to the foundation of the country as President Washington’s. The most glaring example of negative precedence, and one that represents a significant divorce from traditional Constitutional authority, is the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF). AUMF permits the President of the United States to commit military forces in the pursuit of punishing those complicit in the September 11th attacks. Initially, the authorization was permitted only for retaliation against, effectively, Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, the resolution has been cited 37 times by both the Bush and Obama administration for training Filipino, Georgian, and Yemeni armies, deployment of military forces to Djibouti, Kenya, Ethiopia, etc. for stated counterterrorism operations, and military interventions in Ba’athist Iraq, the Somali Civil War, and the campaign against ISIS (Weed).
There is more than sufficient evidence to see that the actions of one president construe permission for similar actions from other presidents and politicians. Therefore, it is not unreasonable to assume that Trump’s revolutionary political use of social media and support for hate groups could become an acceptable stance amongst future presidents and other lesser politicians.
Conclusion
[Finish conclusion]
Works Cited
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/pres-aumf.pdf
@realDonaldTrump. "@WhiteGenocideTM: @realDonaldTrump Poor Jeb. I could've sworn I
saw him outside Trump Tower the other day! https://twitter.com/WhiteGenocideTM/status/690560137040400384/photo/1pic.twitter.com/e5uLRubqla" Twitter, 22 Jan. 2016, 7:51 a.m., https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/690562515500032000, 29 April 2018.
https://source.wustl.edu/2018/01/record-expansion-u-s-hate-groups-slows-trump-administration/
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2018/2017-year-hate-and-extremism
https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2016/topic-pages/incidentsandoffenses
https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=267119122101064071122085015086027077034092086004057035102124023103105110076069110087038017120036122008044070102008108015000108009046056035086101122127025080120028125034021008121096031093123122003004099065119002089022092084115115100007013121127009010067"EXT=pdf
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