Professor Biko Koening and Campaigns and Elections’ Shane Greer provide their experiences of election campaigns in the United States in a polarised political climate.
On October 22, UCD’s Centre for Democracy Research hosted a presentation called ‘Inside US Elections’. Two guest speakers gave their insights into the US electoral system which is embroiled in a climate of tension over which of the two presidential candidates, Kamala Harris for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans, could manage to pull ahead to win the 2024 election. The presentation was opened by Associate Professor of Political Theory Joseph Lacey, who introduced the two guest speakers.
Professor Biko Koening is a political ethnographer based in the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. He engaged with Trump voters as a researcher in Pennsylvania state in 2020, where he studied the MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement as an anthropological approach to understanding the behaviour and profile of Trump voters. He is currently working with Progressive Victory, an organisation which aims to mobilises a Democrat youth vote in the United States through online engagement.
Shane Greer is co-owner and co-publisher of Campaigns and Elections, an industry magazine for political consultants based in America, and is also a founder of the Political Business Institute, a management consultancy for political firms. A Co.Down native, Shane has worked for both Republican and Democrat clients in political consultancy, which gives him unique insight into the formulation and execution of political strategy in campaigning.
what Trump supporters were collectively expressing was an anxiety over a loss of status in America, which would be renewed under Trump’s administration and lost without.
Beginning the presentation, Biko recounted his experience on the ground in 2020 working side by side with devout Trump voters in Pennsylvania. His anecdotes and personal experiences detailed a political class of America that feels repressed and ostracised because of its conservative political views, having to hide its true political perspectives at work and in public for fear of retribution.
Biko says that what Trump supporters were collectively expressing was an anxiety over a loss of status in America, which would be renewed under Trump’s administration and lost without. Trump supporters feel as if they are ‘the butt of the joke’, a political underclass that receives constant derision from progressive elites for having working-class values that the establishment has deemed ‘sexist and racist’.
Biko, quoting from American sociologist Cecilia Ridgeway’s concept of status, explains how status has been pulled away from those who would identify with traditional conservative values and has been transferred to a new political class which holds the opposite view. Much of Trump’s appeal, then, rests in his derision of a liberal establishment that wants to hurt and demonise a system of conservative values. Blame is directed at an establishment that promotes a progressive cultural elitism. Biko says that MAGA, as a social movement and response to change in American life, sees its loss of status as a product of an oppressive liberal system which must be stopped by righteous men and women. MAGA is a ‘perpetual motion machine’ that directs criticism of Trump towards a disenfranchised Republican voter base, using ‘vibes and symbols’. Biko says that more important than building the Wall is the symbolism of such a person who would build the Wall.
A central argument that Biko makes is that under a neoliberal system, MAGA is here to stay. Neoliberalism promotes a sort of individualism that contains ideas of entrepreneurialism, commodification and regulated self-emotion which distances the self away from societal and governmental responsibilities. Complex issues are smoothed over and dualistic assumptions are made about the opposing groups, who are then subjected to sporadic and often violent emotional catharsis, such as the events which occurred on January 6 2021.
On a more positive note, Biko says that MAGA does offer a strong sense of community to participants, where people feel a sense of belonging and happiness aside from political issues. The MAGA community is most appealing to young white men who believe in QAnon and consume content related to conservative thinkers like Jordan Peterson.
Biko, based on his research and experience, asks how we can approach MAGA in a more sympathetic light. According to him, technocratic solutions and policies are not sufficient. Instead, we should be more compassionate to MAGA supporters, appealing to their desire for community, understanding and belonging. We also need to address mass media culture and the attention economy that reproduces content which spurs and sustains polarisation, discuss non-economic issues which are just as important, listen to the grievances of MAGA and ‘meet people where they’re at.’ A change in approach is pivotal.
Following Biko Koenig’s presentation, Shane Greer opens with an unattributed quote: “For those who enjoy privilege, equality can feel like oppression.” Shane describes campaigns like a marvellous machine in the case of the United States, where they are like startups that, over a period of 12-24 months, transform from an operation run by a skeleton crew to a fully functioning corporate organism. Spending is an imperative for election campaigns at every level in America. Every dollar counts for something. If you don’t go into debt, Shane says, then you’re doing something wrong. There are entities which help candidates to raise enough money to exit their debts incurred on the campaign trail.
Policy is hardly discussed in campaigns. Instead, campaigns are an emotional battleground, which are designed to mobilise voters to vote for a particular candidate or NOT to vote for another.
Shane follows with some shocking comparative statistics about spending, which demonstrates the spending power of American organisations. Campaign costs for the Labour Party in Ireland amounted to $520,000 in 2020, while for Capital Grille, a steakhouse in Washington D.C, their costs amounted to $650,000. Shane provides more statistics to draw a comparison between the vast spending power of political entities in the United States during elections ($15.9 billion) and of private corporations like Amazon who spends $44 billion dollars on marketing. Marketing is quite important.
Shane paints a stark picture to illustrate the importance of campaigns for Republicans and Democrats in the United States. Policy staff fall far behind campaign staff. Policy is hardly discussed in campaigns. Instead, campaigns are an emotional battleground, which are designed to mobilise voters to vote for a particular candidate or NOT to vote for another.
Shane explains the concept of ‘conquesting’, which is utilised by political entities to advertise their campaign towards voters who would traditionally avoid voting for them. Conquesting ensures that a candidate is seen by all voters, Republican or Democrat. On the other hand, ‘conquest households’ is conquesting which targets voters where they live. Shane further notes that there is little regulation in the United States in terms of data protection for election campaigns, so campaigners essentially have free reign to design advertising to target voters as they wish. Voters are treated like consumers, so their patterns of consumption must be altered or maintained to drive their voting behaviour one way or another.
To illustrate this point, Shane presents ads from the Harris and Trump campaigns which deal with criminal violence. In Harris’ case it focuses on victims of sexual violence and some of the precarity its victims face in the wake of the repeal of Roe v Wade by the Supreme Court. Trump’s ad, on the other hand, targets Harris’ career as a prosecutor, and the failure of ‘radical’ liberal policies which get people killed by repeat felons being put back on the street. There was some prominent racial dog whistling in this ad which Shane says is a conscious decision on the part of the marketing team to choose a Black felon over a white felon.
Shane continues the presentation to focus on the swing states in the elections: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Shane lives in Alexandria, Virginia, a traditionally Democrat-voting enclave quite close to Washington D.C. Virginia, like many other states, has a clear Blue demarcation, as do the rest of the United States which are Red or Blue states with solid voting patterns. In 2020, by a factor of only tens of thousands of votes, if Trump had more votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin, his share of the electoral college vote would have tied with Harris’; 269 to 269. It would come down to Congress to decide who became president. If Republicans controlled both houses, Trump would have been elected. Shane believes that swing states will again be crucial to deciding by a very narrow margin who will win the election. Elections are won with emotions, not policies.
Having concluded their presentations, the floor was opened to questioning. Joseph Lacey asked both speakers about polarisation and how it looks among activists and campaigners who are promoting emotions and vibes. Shane responds that there are some operatives within activism and campaigning who are genuinely believers of the messaging that they communicate, but for the majority of them this is not the case; it’s just a job, like selling Mars bars and Twix bars. There is a great degree of communicating between both sides in innovating in their field. Biko follows with his own experience, saying that the polarisation is significant but has a ‘texture’. Democrat voters are visualised by Trump voters as magnanimous to a point. In a progressive point of view, Trump voters are completely racist and communicate this in an alienating way. Biko explains the concept of ‘deep canvassing’ which is meant to build a personal connection between a campaign advocate and a voter at their front door, hoping to direct their vote a certain way.
One audience member asked Shane about campaign spending, and if it could be allocated more effectively in the future, accounting for such innovations as AI. Shane responded that there is an issue that both parties face, in that there are candidates that are captivating to voters but are incapable of winning elections. Donors are wasting money on unwinnable candidates, instead of election-winning candidates like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Campaigners should then solve the problem of how to direct donations more effectively. In the case of AI, it will be transformative in the next election. Generative AI tools will be so helpful because ‘humans don’t scale’. It can cut the human cost significantly to use AI to devise a successful campaign strategy.