A Change of Views
Isn’t it interesting how as election day gets nearer, policies regarding immigration slowly begin to shift closer and closer to the voters wants rather than what the candidate truly wants? And, how before someone becomes a candidate for president they have an entirely different view on a subject than they do when they are running for the presidency? Not surprisingly, both Trump and Clinton held entirely different views on immigration prior to running for president according to Sarlin of NBC News. Sarlin states that in 2007, Clinton opposed the issuing of driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and in 2012, Trump claimed that Romney’s views on self-deportation were too harsh. Trump also claimed that Romney’s policies were crazy and that if he was president he would allow undocumented immigrants to stay in the country. Both of these views are entirely opposite of the views they hold now, which represents the rhetorical strategy of modifying the candidate image and tailoring it to the voter’s wants. Yes, Trump wants to build a wall, but the reason he has become so adamant towards going through with his plan instead of a calmer and less “crazy” plan as he suggested with Romney, is because he wants to appease his voters. Most of his voters are extreme right wing who want to build the wall too, so he must chase this viewpoint instead of being more in the middle. Clinton’s voters, on the other hand are against the wall, so in order to appeal to them she must completely go against the wall in every way. This means that she has to go against what she said previously about restricting driver’s licenses. She has to be completely on the left if Trump is going to be completely on the right. Here, the two are using the rhetorical strategy of “sharpening up the pointless”, a strategy suggested by Kenneth Burke. While it appears that prior to the campaign the candidates both held more of a middle ground towards immigration, they now have both sharpened the edges of their views and are having to hold harsher positions on the issue of immigration in order to sway voters.
The “Trump Effect”
Now that policies have been sharpened throughout the campaign, the focus is to win the voters onto either side of the candidate by playing on the emotions of the voters, sometimes achieving this by putting the opposite candidate in a very bad light. Clinton is playing on strong emotions regarding children to get voters on her side regarding immigration. Clinton says the so called “Trump Effect” is frightening immigrants and children. Children tend to be where people place most of their emotion. For instance, when an advertisement shows a child in need, more people are likely to donate to the cause. So, by Clinton saying that children are frightened, she tugs on the heartstrings of Trump voters, challenging them to reconsider their views for the sake of the little ones. She is effective doing this by using another incredibly effective rhetorical strategy: telling a story. She has been telling stories of young children who have been adopted asking if Trump will send them back to their home countries if he is elected and claiming that they are frightened of losing their new families. That breaks the hearts of many, and is a very effective strategy in its use. As Westen says in his book The Political Brain, “The political brain is an emotional brain. It is not a dispassionate calculating machine, objectively searching for the right facts, figures, and policies to make a reasoned decision.” If this is true, then Trump will be in trouble if Clinton’s story gets out to too many of his voters and effects their feelings. He will lose voters because of her effective rhetorical use of stories against him. Even the furthest right wing voters who agree with his policies will begin to struggle with him because logic will go out the window and sympathy towards the children will begin to set in and cause people to consider Clinton.
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I’m glad you pointed out how candidates’ views change to appease voters as election day nears. I believe this change in views happens with every candidate in every election. Since this election has two candidates who have “flip-flopped” views throughout their political lives and before, this subject matter is crucial to consider. Trump’s plan to build a wall and Hillary’s plan to oppose the wall go right along with the way the right is becoming more conservative, and the left is becoming more liberal. Trump has to play to an alt-right audience that is fed up with past conservative immigration policies. Hillary has to play to her alt-left audience that believes Trump is a racist and demagogue. By modifying their images, these candidates can appeal to an audience whose votes their party needs in order to win the general election.
I hadn’t realized that both Clinton and Trump has flip-flopped so starkly on this issue. Because both of them have changed their views they cannot attack each other for it as would likely happen in a general election. If only one had changed views then the other could have ran attack ads, such as the John Kerry windsurfing ad we watched in class, against them, but because both have done so would it would come off as hypocritical and could come back to bite them. It still find is baffling how completely Trump has shifted on immigration, and so many other issues, to where he is now. He went from having many liberal ideals to being one of the most far right candidates we’ve ever had.