Could Mr. Trump’s Election Model be Applied to Japanese Elections Using the Internet?

The internet has been used in American presidential elections since midway through the 1990s. Initially, it was used simply, with candidates setting up a website to advocate their positions and opinions on. However, a big change came in the 2000 presidential election. Each campaign, created websites that could be used to recruit volunteers and solicit campaign donations. In 2008, candidate Obama was very proactive in taking advantage of the spread of broadband, with his use of YouTube videos and applications for iPhones. And in 2012, Twitter also began to be used. The nature of Twitter allows for speech to be transmitted immediately, and for the speedy rebuttal of rival campaign’s points. As soon as one side sees what the rival candidate is saying, they can fire back a refutation straight away. This can be seen by both supporters and voters, with a feeling of it being live, and they not only get to know the attitudes of the candidates, but they also get to enjoy it in a sense. This tendency became even more intense in the 2016 presidential election.

After the election, Trump said that “social media helped me win my election” in an interview with a CBS news program, but of course the Clinton campaign also had a social media strategy and used an outside group to form a rapid response team. The Clinton campaign’s strategy centered on using Twitter as an instant way to circulate campaign information as news. For example, when she gave a victory speech in the primary election, the contents of the speech were posted on Twitter in real time, and a lot of use was made of videos to present an attractive package, like broadcasting edited versions of Mrs. Clinton’s TV adverts, which had a strong connotation that they were announcements from Mrs. Clinton. However, these were controlled from above, and rather than being a conversation with voters, you could say it was more like a personal television station. In contrast, Mr. Trump used Twitter as an informal tool for communication, and a way to spread his conversations with supporters. This helped his messages, which could be characterized as reckless remarks, resonate with voters who “wanted a change in the status quo,” and provided fertile ground to wildly enthuse Trump supporters.

Of course, Mr. Trump’s victory was not solely due to his use of social media. The confrontation with Mrs. Clinton was also determined by other factors that can’t be ignored, such as voters demand for an outsider over an insider, and Catholics and evangelicals preferring to support the conservative Mr. Trump over the liberal Mrs. Clinton. From the Japanese perspective, Christians support of Mr. Trump might seem strange, but this was largely influenced by the timing of having a vacant position on the Supreme Court of the United States from February 2016, and the fact that the next president would get to choose who would fill this vacancy. With the acceptance of abortion and LGBT marriage being major issues, Christians didn’t want any more liberal leaning judges to be chosen, and so didn’t pick the liberal Mrs. Clinton who zealously goes to church, but chose the conservative Mr. Trump who had stated that “I believe in God, but I’ve never sought God’s forgiveness.”

This election exposed how serious the extent of the divisions are in American society. These divisions are not simply a problem between different classes of economic groups, or the political establishment and the general public, but also extend to between people with liberal values and conservative values. It is also not only just a question of religious ethics. For example, President Obama tried to make advances in regards to gun control, and the areas where this is supported, like the East Coast and the West Coast of the US, coincided with the areas where Mrs. Clinton received the most votes in this election. In contrast, areas that are against gun control, like the Midwest, were areas that voted more for Trump.
Bringing together this divided America was going to be a massive task for whoever became the next president. There is still a lot of anti-Trump feeling, and in response to that he has begun to soften his stance on some of the more extreme policies that he advocated during the election, but this in turn has caused a backlash from Trump supporters. Those in the political world, economic world and journalists have calmed down from their momentary hysterical reaction, and have turned towards watching Mr. Trump’s actions attentively, but the feelings of the citizens have not been so easily calmed. The populist, Mr. Trump will have his abilities severely tested from here on in.