When Issue Framing Fails

Donald Trump has been falling in the polls and as a result he has gone on the offensive. He has tried to attack Joe Biden on a variety of fronts but his efforts have not been successful (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/difficult-attack-vanilla-trump-s-throwing-everything-biden-nothing-sticks-n1233097).  Trump has attacked Biden on three main fronts: he will be a tool of the radical left, he is not mentally capable of being president, and he was not the man to handle foreign policy with China. The issue is that none of these attacks have been effective. The Democratic primary centered on the question of whether Biden was in touch enough with his selectorate to be a good representative of the party and the voters thought he was. The voters also believe that he is just as mentally capable as Trump. They also believe he would handle China better than Trump did (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/difficult-attack-vanilla-trump-s-throwing-everything-biden-nothing-sticks-n1233097).  The result of these failed attacks is the Trump is losing popularity and Biden is growing in it. Trump has failed to properly lead his party in an effort to paint Biden as something that is unconscionable. Biden is winning this battle and it is a result of a failing of Trump and the Republican Party. 

 

I believe the issue that plagues Trump and the Republican Party as a whole is a failure to function effectively as a party. A political party functions as peak effectiveness when it is able to frame the issues to fit the party platform. Parties frame issues with the rhetoric they use in speeches and in advertising to shape the way that the electorate feels about a specific issue. The electorate in America is not usually politically engaged and so it must look to the parties to direct their thoughts. In this specific case Trump and the Republican Party are required to set the party’s feelings about Biden. The party has not been able to and thusly have failed in this key function. The party has failed because the attacks and attempts that Trump tries to make have not stuck. Trump’s modus operandi of name-calling and fear mongering has failed to give the party proper direction as to how they should feel about Biden. The gaps in the Biden campaign are similar to the gaps in Trump’s. They are both old, they are both white, and they are both men. The party is not able to use their attacks to properly frame Biden as something that must be opposed at all cost. That has left the party open for dissent. 

 

The results of the failure for Donald Trump and the Republican Party can be seen as the growth of support for the opposition. The party has failed to create a cohesive image of the opposition and that has increased the number of dissenters from the party. The number of party members that do not approve of Trump has increased the closer we have been getting to the election (https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/17/not-only-is-trumps-approval-with-republicans-not-96-percent-energy-appears-be-slipping/). There are other effects that have been caused by the inability of the Republican Party to properly frame the issues for the party as a whole. The Democrat Party have been able to surge in Congressional elections and in state races as a result of the Trump presidency (https://www.npr.org/2020/07/01/885878543/progressive-democrats-gain-influence-in-congressional-races). We have also seen a raise in the number of Republican candidates that are challenging the incumbents based on anti-Trump platforms (https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_Republican_Party_primaries,_2020). Both of these measures depict a party that is failing to properly frame the issues and to set a good platform. The Republican Party is without solid direction from the head of the party and therefore dissent and fracturing are bound to occur.

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