Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are using emotion in attempts to sway voters on the issue of immigration. Emotion in politics is a very powerful thing. According to Weston, people are driven by wishes, fears, and values more so than rational thought and emotion is the foundation to rational thought. The candidates are going about their use of emotion in different ways; Trump is using fear and Clinton is using values. The question that may help decide the election is who does a better job at hitting the right emotions.
Trump is using fear to scare the American people. He wants them to see foreign-born immigrants (mainly Hispanics and Muslims) as bad people that we must keep out of the country. As I said in my previous blog, Trump has labeled Mexican immigrants as “rapists”, “criminals”, and “drug dealers”. All three of these labels are things people fear. Trump is attempting to create a connection between immigrants and these labels to incite fear amongst voters.
Clinton is trying to use a more value based emotional appeal. She tells stories of children of illegal immigrants being separated from their parents. In the most recent debate she spoke about a girl from Nevada who feared her parents would be deported and she would ripped apart from her family. She went on to say “I don’t want to rip families apart. I don’t want to be sending parents away from children. I don’t want to see the deportation force that Donald has talked about in action in our country.” She is playing at the moral value that a person would not want to see their family, or anyone’s, family torn apart and because that is what deportation will do you shouldn’t support it.
I believe Clinton has a better approach to this competition on emotion. Her strategy applies more broadly because anyone with a family or that has belonged to a family can emphasize with what she is saying. Many people believe Trump’s name calling to be bigoted. His fear mongering is not as effective as Hillary’s emotional play on moral values.