The 2024 Election and The Media's Role

 The 2024 election will see the GOP, divided between Trump, Desantis, and the pleasant young surprise Vivek Ramaswamy, trying to dethrone the Democrats, who are seemingly united under incumbent President Joe Biden. The Biden administration, which can be best thought of as a response to the prior Trump Administration, has had a turbulent four-year run. Between the war in Ukraine, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, the train derailment in East Palestine, and the still recovering economy, the Biden administration has nearly matched the level of turbulence generated by Donald Trump and his recent indictments regarding claims of election fraud in the 2020 election. Furthermore, Trump's status as the no-brainer GOP nominee has been challenged by Ron Desantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, meaning that both sides of the American political spectrum are in vulnerable positions. So, what is the secret mechanism by which either side can achieve victory? Enter mass media. In the US, whether you like it or not, the mass media is nearly the sole connection point between the voters and the candidates of any given election. The media are highly influential, and highly important to any campaign.  That said, media support is not necessarily an automatic win for any given candidate. In the 2016 election, Donald Trump received very little media support, even from the right-wing publications. However, working inversely to the common belief, the media's disdain for Trump fed into his meteoric rise to power in the GOP. So, where does the media stand in relation to election influence? That is the topic that I will be diving into over the course of the next few months, giving you weekly or bi-weekly uploads to help shed light on the American mass media's effect in the 2024 election.

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