Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are the 2024 Presidential candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties, respectively.
With the Presidential election just nearly two weeks away, the controversial debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris is at the forefront of millions of people's minds, both domestically and abroad. Now in 2024, the usage of online media plays a huge role in campaigning, whether it is advocating for themselves or attacking their opponent. Media allows for the American people to have access to all kinds of information on both sides, more than likely biased on both, and has led to an increase of polarization between the Republican and Democratic parties. As a twenty-one-year-old college student, I have grown up in a household that has always followed politics, and I really only remember what seem to have been the three most unconventional presidential elections, perhaps in history, in 2016, 2020, and now 2024. As a student studying Public Policy, I constantly have asked myself the same questions surrounding the way the world views both of our potential presidential candidates: have elections always looked like this? Was there a time when people respected the President, even if they belonged to the opposing party?
Respect is something that should be earned, and the President should be held accountable for that idea as well. But, the President is the most important and powerful person in the nation, and it discredits the idea of the United States of America if the people do not take the President seriously. According to the Pew Research Center, the shift in trust in the federal government to make the right decisions has trended downwards from around three-quarters since 1958. Since then, there have been several scandals that have resulted in distrust in the federal government, and the President specifically —like the Vietnam War or the Watergate Scandal. Today, only 22% of Americans trust the federal government just about always” (2%) or “most of the time” (21%). With the increase in extremism and polarization, there are increasingly fewer swing voters and people are stubborn when it comes to sticking with their affiliated party.
Presidential debates are especially areas that put candidates in the spotlight to the public, allowing them to talk about themselves, and their views, and question the other candidates. Do the candidates not respecting each other result in the public not respecting them either? Looking back at the history of presidential debates, the first televised presidential debate was in 1960, between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Then after a 16-year break, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford debated and thus started the tradition of these debates between candidates before every presidential election.
In this debate, Kennedy and Nixon had varying views on how to fix the issues facing the United States, but they still remained cordial and respectful towards each other. They focused on how they were going to fix problems and lead the country, and after four debates Kennedy became the favored candidate and the two continued to have a mutually respectful relationship. Even more recently in 2008, John McCain, the Republican Presidential nominee, came to the defense of Barack Obama after a woman was openly racist toward Obama on the campaign trail. His response was respectful, saying that Obama is “a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”
But, as we transition into the political realm today, we see quite the opposite of what respect should look like. And especially with the extreme polarization in the United States, many people both on the far left and right side are not open to questioning what their preferred candidate says, which results in accepting one candidate and seeing the other as the enemy. Over the past six months, we have seen absurd language and conversations in the media and debates between Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and then Kamala Harris.
We can see the prevalence of the now popular nickname “Sleepy Joe” which was coined by Donald Trump and is now known throughout the entire country, describing his old age and fragile mental state that inevitably forced him out of the Democratic presidential incumbency seat. We can also recount the infamous conversation between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the first Presidential Debate of 2024 when Biden claimed that Trump had “sex with a porn star” on the national stage with millions of Americans watching. We can also see that since Harris has stepped into the Democratic nomination Trump has questioned her racial identity. At the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Trump was asked if he believes Harris’s success has only come from D.E.I, to which he responded “I didn't know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don't know, is she Indian or is she Black?" These are just a few of many nasty and cruel comments made by these candidates about one another that have contributed to more misinformation and a lack of unification in this country.
Overall, the public has stopped respecting the President and how much they do for this country but a shift like this is not something that happens on its own. In recent years, politicians have used their social media platforms to spread hate and lies in a more fast and accessible way that many people choose to stand behind simply because of the candidates' partisanship. In order for the public to respect presidential candidates and Presidents once they are in office, other politicians need to reflect on their own actions and words towards these individuals, and how much or little they value respect when it comes to running this country.
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