Bad publicity for Trump gains support

by Meghan McDonald

​What’s more entertaining in the news than campaign coverage in the months leading up to the election? During this campaign season, the big name that’s seemingly always in the news is Donald Trump. He is known for his controversial quotes and outrageous behavior during debates and rallies, many of which end up enraging the public because they come off as racist or sexist.

At an Iowa rally in August 2015, Trump dismissed a Latino reporter by saying, “You haven’t been called, go back to Univision.” Univision is an American Spanish broadcast network, so needless to say many people were offended by his comment. It is a wonder to me if all this news coverage is only fueling his fanbase, despite most of it being negative? The saying “all publicity is good publicity” comes into play here. Even though it makes all public relations majors cringe, seeing Donald Trump’s name in the news so frequently may be the cause of him getting votes.

According to The Atlantic, when reporters interviewed supporters of Trump and were asked why they were voting for him, a good portion of the people seemed to be motivated by the show he puts on in the media. Trump reinforces the idea that even bad publicity is helping him gain supporters. However this begs the question, what kind of people are voting for him? The Atlantic got quotes from Trump supporters as to their motives for voting for him and their answers were quite telling. One of them said that, “At some level, I don’t really care how things go with America as long as it’s fun to watch.” Another claims that, “Like the joker from The Dark Knight, I just want to see the world burn.” Not exactly the kind of people I want deciding who our next President will be. Luckily, any public relations major can weed out publicity stunts from genuine behavior. However a good way to lose the vote from PR people is something that Trump said at an Iowa rally in November. Trump said, “Did you read about Starbucks? No more ‘Merry Christmas’ at Starbucks. No more. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks.” Please don’t take away our coffee, that is no way to “make America great again.”