A Review of: “Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics,by Thomas Meyer with Lew Hinchman”

This study assesses the importance of paid advertising. Drawing from observations and interviews with ad creators and campaign managers, it describes, analyzes, and evaluates what the candidates did and why in the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary election. Specifically, the study examines the importance of initial ads, consistency in ads, and the use of negative ads. It demonstrates that candidates flooded the airwaves with 30‐second ads, spending well in excess of overall spending limits on advertising alone. Ad innovations in 1992 were as follows: heavy New Hampshire and Boston time buying, an attack strategy against an incumbent president, an informercial to raise money, distributed videotapes, interactive video appeals, and half‐hour programs. Candidates who advertised early and stayed consistent in their imagery did better than candidates who advertised later and created multiple images and varied ads.     

美国选举安全问题：以2016年和2020年总统大选为例

2016年美国总统大选暴露了长期存在于该国选举体系中的风险,\"选举安全\"迅速成为当代美国国家安全与国土安全领域的重要议题。美国选举安全涉及网络安全、社会安全、政治安全与军事安全,体现出\"复合安全问题\"的特质。美国联邦与各州政府试图从降低关键基础设施风险、重建选民信任、减少部门壁垒以及填补机制缺失四个层面入手,系统性化解存在于选举系统的各类安全威胁。2020年美国大选期间,原有选举安全风险得到一定程度的缓解,但美国国家安全体制及文化与其选举安全体系的运行逻辑之间仍存在多层矛盾,特别是美国选举体系的产业市场与创新之间的矛盾、国家安全与\"言论自由\"之间的矛盾、\"全政府\"与\"地方权\"之间的矛盾、\"网络自由\"与\"网络主权\"之间的矛盾。这些矛盾会长期存在,将使利益攸关方不断发生龃龉,阻碍相关政策深入推进,最终导致美国在选举安全治理上将一直面临难以克服的困境。     

Hard‐Core Toughie: Donald Trump’s Negotiations for the United States Presidency

This paper examines the negotiation tactics employed by Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential campaign. Drawing on data from multiple sources (interviews, debates, articles, books), our analysis begins with a brief overview of Trump’s personality and philosophy, which offers a basis for understanding his general negotiating approach. We then highlight six competitive tactics and four principles of persuasion that Trump employs, with specific examples of how he used them during the campaign with his primary negotiating counterparts – the other candidates, the Republican Party, the press corps, and the American electorate. Finally, we discuss some of the implications of his negotiating approach and preferred tactics in dealing with domestic and international issues as president of the United States.     

Briefly Noted

The argument is commonly made that television has changed the character of parliamentary elections. Its ever more central role in election campaigns outside the United States is held to have “presidentialized” parliamentary elections because it is a medium that projects personalities more effectively than ideas or policies. A comparison of the electoral roles of the Australian prime minister and the U.S. president indicates that both leaders are held personally accountable for government performance. However, such “presidentialism” appears to have little to do with television in Australia or in the United States. Television‐dependent citizens in both countries are less susceptible to the campaign appeals of chief executives than the rest of the voting public. Both leaders, but especially the president, do have an electoral impact. Counter to expectations, however, this impact makes itself felt in both cases among those voters who are not dependent on television for their political information and cues. Party identification seems to insulate the television‐dependent more successfully against leader effects.     

High-tech Interest Groups in the United States and Its Political Influence

Representing the appeals of its industry,the high-tech interest group has recently become an emerging political force in the United States.With abundant financial resources and proficiency in political communication,the group rapidly grows to be a significant force in the American political sphere.It has started to affect the internal and foreign affairs of the U.S.and played a proactive role in the latest presidential election.Since the high-tech interest group has already become and will continue to be a big player in Sino-U.S.relations,China should carefully deal with its appeals and conflict of interests,and try to develop this group into a stabilizer between the two countries.     

It Can't Happen Here,1 or Has It? Sinclair Lewis's Fascist America

Sinclair Lewis, the first American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, anticipated many aspects of Donald J. Trump's 2016 campaign and election in his 1935 satirical dystopia, It Can't Happen Here. It was his most popular novel to date and is still satisfying, thought-provoking political theater. Lewis was influenced by growing totalitarianism in Europe, reported on by his second wife, foreign correspondent, Dorothy Thompson. Noting the power of Father Coughlin and Huey Long, among others, to mobilize a public still suffering from the Great Depression, Lewis feared a fascist takeover of the American government by democratic means. Lewis's fictional nightmare features a loutish, ignorant demagogue, who is manipulated by a sinister ghostwriter adviser. With support from a resentful League of Forgotten Men, the demagogue is elected President and quickly establishes a military, racist, and anti-Semitic dictatorship. It Can't Happen Here dramatizes the dire consequences of this takeover, which is not taken seriously at first by Lewis's newspaper editor protagonist, but then is increasingly resisted. Lewis is a social satirist in the Mark Twain tradition, and his novel is worth reading today for its suggestive parallels with current history and its good-hearted humor.