Presidential Candidate Interpret 2016 election

You will be writing a paper about how one of the (non-incumbent) presidential candidates interprets the 2016 election, and how the candidate’s analysis shapes the campaign he or she is now running. Choose one of the 2020 presidential candidates other than Donald Trump. With one exception, described below, it should be someone who has officially announced his or her candidacy, and is listed as “Running” here: https://nyti.ms/2ZMFdUz. So it can be any of the 20+ Democrats, Republican Bill Weld, or the one exception: independent Howard Schultz, who has not (as of this assignment) announced his candidacy but is eligible for this project. Immerse yourself in the candidate’s own language and rhetoric. Study his or her announcement speech and introductory video. If your candidate has written a book, especially one in the past few years, read it. If he or she has participated in one of the town-hall meetings televised by CNN, MSNBC or Fox News, watch it. Look for other writings, like blog posts, op-eds, or social-media content. Seek out audio and video of your candidate speaking at campaign events, and in appearances on television, radio, web video and podcasts. Read newspaper and magazine profiles of your candidate, especially those in which he or she is interviewed. Sign up for updates from the candidate’s web page and follow the blast emails that are sent during the weeks you are working on this assignment. Set a Google alert for your candidate to stay up to date on developments. You should develop a knowledge of and familiarity with your candidate’s worldview that allows you to write with authority on the following topic: How does your candidate interpret what happened in the 2016 presidential election? How did his or her broader story about American politics, about the Democratic and Republican parties, about where power resides and how change happens, evolve with the result in 2016? What is his or her motivation for explaining 2016 in such a way? What interests does that story serve, either now or in the future? In some instances your candidate will be direct and overt in this analysis. At other times, it will be implied or suggested. Elsewhere I will want you to take note of both absence and emphasis. Which narratives for the 2016 election does your candidate not address or invoke? What does he or she ignore? Which explanations for Trump’s success does he or she discount or minimize, either directly or by implication? You will characterize that story for me — use quotes as appropriate, but you should be synthesizing and summarizing in your own voice. Where useful, contrast your candidates’ analysis with some of his or her rivals. (Don’t, however, make this a survey of all 25 candidates’ language — draw in contrasts only where it illuminates something interesting or important about your candidate.). Especially if your candidate has a long political career — like say, Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders — compare their current words with their pre-2016 rhetoric. How has the story they tell about American politics been shaped by the 2016 election? For all candidates: does the story, or points of emphasis within it, vary with the intended audience or has it shifted over the course of his or her candidacy? Put your candidate’s rhetoric in conversation with the readings we did about 2016. Does your candidate’s story mimic or borrow from (not necessarily by direct attribution) any authors? Whose analysis does your candidate accept or embrace, whose does he or she reject? Where does your candidate separate himself or herself from existing analyses? What types of evidence does your candidate cite to support his or her explanation for what happened in the 2016 election? (Note: when I say above “2016 election” that may be connected to, but distinct from, the Trump presidency. But as this course focussed on the stories we tell about elections, make sure you frame your analysis in the context of how Trump ran and won rather than how he has governed.) Then show how that storytelling shapes the current campaign he or she is running. In what ways is your candidate’s interpretation of 2016 visible in his or her 2020 strategy, either for the primaries or a potential general election? How is it reflected in his or her policy agenda, the choice of issues and promised governing priorities? Is the story aimed at particular areas of demographic or geographic attention, or certain types of elites or interest groups? How does your candidate integrate that 2016 story into his or her biography? Offer some broader historical context for this, informed by the reading we’ve done. Put this story and the ways it is used in the context of other stories told about presidential elections going back to 1948. (If you want to bring in examples beyond what we read in class, that’s swell — but you should not need to.) What echoes do you hear in your candidate’s language? Which familiar narratives does he or she reject? Are there examples that might show how or why your candidate is putting such a story to use this way? Your citations can come in any form you choose (endnotes, footnotes, etc.) as long as you pick a style and stick to it consistently. Regardless of form, they should demonstrate that you consulted a wide and varied range of sources. Both your endnotes and the text of your paper should show that you engaged with the course readings, both related to 2016 and the earlier campaigns we studied in the first half of the term. This project should test your research capability, your skills of analysis, your command of the material covered during the course, and your ability to construct both narrative and argument.