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Course: UE Language Competence I

2020

Course Number: 120101

Lecturer: Gabrielle Smith, MA

Assignment 1 – Text Analysis:

2020 U.S. ELECTIONS’ POLICY PROPOSAL –
TARGET AUDIENCE COMPARISON

Patrick Fuchs (01547277)

a01547277@unet.univie.ac.at

Masterstudium Lehramt Sek (AB) (UA 199 507 511 02)

Abstract

In our pluralistic world, objective analyses concerning political actors and their agendas are
hardly to be found and even harder to be distinguished according to their exact ideological
leaning. One logical conclusion is to draw on sources whose underlying ideology is in plain
sight but who are obliged to retain some degree of accountability; namely the candidates
themselves. This paper tires to point out ways, in which political parties’ policy proposals are
constructed in relation to one another and the discourse surrounding them. More precisely,
its purpose is to provide insight into the 2020 U.S. presidential campaigns’ underlying motives
surrounding the content of their “Environment and Energy” proposals by indicating structural
as well as lexical and grammatical features found on the respective policy proposals of the
Republican and Democratic candidates. By incorporating a critical discourse analysis and
comparison of both texts into the genre analysis, general tendencies will be elaborated as
indices of underlying intentions and intended audiences. In this specific case, the study has
shown that the decision whether a campaign choses a more focussed approach to their target
audience, as done by the Republican candidate, or a broader approach, chosen by the
Democratic nominee, is highly dependent on societal circumstances and a knowledge of the
other candidate’s strategies. These results show that textual analysis of sources linked to real-
live decision making and positions of power cannot be looked at in isolation but must be
viewed in relation to their counterparts and agents that are connected to them.
Introduction

Decision-making in political matters, especially in ones as concerning as impactful as one’s

vote in presidential elections, is a delicate process which needs ample reflection on one’s own
beliefs, how these might be reflected in a candidate’s agenda and what chances they have of
being implemented into practical policies. This paper will focus on two distinct sections
concerning “Environment and Energy” in the policy proposals put forward by the presidential
incumbent and his challenger on their respective campaign websites. Generally, these are
rather directed at undecided voters, as one can present political stances in a favourable light
without having to deal with much interaction between sender and receiver. Since the advent
of digital broadcasting and advertising communication has to a certain degree become less
regulated and harder to screen for potential misinformation compared to previous forms of
information circulation. Thus, one of the most transparent ways of obtaining information
would be from the politicians themselves. However, these seldom put forward objective
statements, but rather ones that favour their side of the argument, which is why a critical
analysis of how they intend to sway voters is essential for critically reviewing proposals put
forward by political parties. During the research for literature on moves on this specific genre,
I was unable to find guides specifically tailored towards it, thus, I incorporated a
contextualisation of strategies behind the approaches based on secondary literature, some
moves from campaign speeches and analysed the most prevalent moves incorporated by
either campaign to contrast them effectively. The aim of this paper is to shine light on how
political motives and aspirations are expressed through presidential candidates’ use of design
and structure as well as rhetoric devices and content in their policy proposals. Furthermore,
it is meant to thus deepen the readers’ understanding of said genre and enable them to apply
knowledge gained on texts of a similar nature. The research question to be answered is as
follows: in which way do the moves, on the macro-level, and rhetorical devices as well as
lexical-grammatical features, on the micro-level, reflect on the target audience of the
Democratic and Republican policy proposals?

Contextualisation and description of the data:

During the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the subsequent tenure of Donald Trump,
several concerns originating in the use of the Internet as a means of campaigning and
distributing information were put forwards. Two of these influence the genre at hand: there
is the concern of a campaign’s stances on wedge issues, meaning controversial topics of
political interest such as U.S climate politics, abortion or immigration that can mobilise
otherwise undecided voters, being commonly presented to specific voter groups via targeted
political advertisements to avoid backlash from the dissenting voices of opposed or undecided
voters; and the lack of journalists’ fact-checking on various online platforms.1 These
phenomena, usually reserved for targeted social media advertisements, stepped into the
spotlight as soon as Trump announced his intention of running as a Republican candidate for
the presidency, with him openly drawing on populist rhetoric concerning immigration2, the
Paris Climate Agreement3 or confederate symbolisms4 despite these being issues prone to
causing public uproar and divide. In connection with this and the process of populist identity
framing5, Trump’s rhetoric built upon establishing a threat to the established in-group. By
opting to openly take stances on these charged issues, the trump campaign takes a gamble,
which prompts an ideological divide and leads to either a stigmatisation of his character traits
deducted from those stances or a staunch support thereof.6

Opposed to this, Joe Biden’s approach focussed more heavily on a unifying message and an
effort to lower ideological tensions within the country, relying on less aggressive rhetoric with
regards to social, ethnical and ideological differences amongst voters as can be seen in
campaign speeches, in which he addressed “all Americans” and called for equal opportunities
for “everyone, and I mean everyone”7. An additional factor that needs to be considered in this
regard is the incumbent effect, which leans on Stackelberg’s economic leadership model,
describing one party as the “leader” and the other as a “follower” of actions8.9 Concerning
elections, this means that the incumbent has an advantage in stating opinions if perceived as

1 Council of Europe, Internet and Electoral Campaigns. Study on the Use of Internet in Electoral Campaigns, 2018. 18-19.
https://rm.coe.int/use-of-internet-in-electoral-campaigns-/16807c0e24
2 Adam Gabbatt, „Donald Trump’s tirade on Mexico’s ‘drugs and rapists’ outrages US Latinos.” The Guardian, June 16, 2015,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-mexico-presidential-speech-latino-hispanic.
3 BBC News. „Donald Trump would ‘cancel’ Paris climate deal. May 27, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-

36401174
4
James Hohmann, „The Daily 202: Trump‘s embrace of Confederate statues as a wedge issue underscores Bannon’s
enduring influence. The Washington Post, August 18, 2017,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/08/18/daily-202-trump-s-embrace-of-
confederate-statues-as-a-wedge-issue-underscores-bannon-s-enduring-influence/59965f8030fb0433811d69dc/
5
Linda Boss, Christian Schemer, Nicoleta Corbu, Michael Hameleers, Ioannis Andreadis, Anne Schulz, Desirée Schmuck,
Carsten Reinemann and Nayla Fawzi, “The Effects of Populism as Social Identity Frame on Persuasion and Mobilisation:
Evidence from a 15-Country Experiment. European Journal of Political Research 59, no. 1 (2019): 3-24.
6
Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963), 11-14.
7
Jacob Pramuk. “Read Joe Biden’s Full 2020 Democratic National Convention Speech.” CNBC politics, August 21, 2020,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/21/joe-biden-dnc-speech-transcript.html#close
8
Julien Ludovic, “A Note on Stackelberg Competition,” Journal of Economics 103, no. 2 (2011): 171-172.
9
Simon P. Anderson and Gerhard Glomm, “Incumbency Effects in Political Campaigns.” Public Choice 74 (1992): 208-209.
more charismatic, while the challenger has the advantage of being able to delay certain
announcements and, if the candidates’ charisma is generally viewed as being equal, can put
forward criticism of the incumbent’s past actions.10 Thus, it can be stated that in this instance
the genre’s primary purpose is to present information about planned policies in a favourable
light while diminishing the opponent’s, with the secondary purpose being a mobilisation or
convincing of voters for one side. It is assumed that Trump’s proposals will focus more heavily
on mobilising his base, while Biden will try to sway voters and strike a more moderate tone.

Analysis:

The general intentions of policy proposals need to be clearly visible when starting to engage
with the text for it to be successful. Both websites’ slogan and title suite this purpose, with
Biden’s slogan BATTLE for the SOUL of the NATION and title of THE BIDEN PLAN TO BUILD A
MODERN, SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE AND AN EQUITABLE CLEAN ENERGY FUTURE
drawing on moral values, highlighting the content words in bold, and following up by
presenting a vision of the future suitable for his proclaimed intention, and Trump’s repetition
of the 2016 slogan Make America Great Again in combination with the title and subtitle of
Energy And Environment – President Donald J. Trump Achievements indicating that his goals
from 2016 were not yet completely fulfilled and need another term to be realised. Regarding
these aspects, Trumps website already seems to appeal less to undecided voters for two
crucial reasons: The use of his old slogan, which has grown to become a symbol of the
ideological divide in the United States does no longer work in the same manner it did four
years prior, since he is no longer the underdog but the incumbent; and his reluctance of
incorporating references to measures of countering Climate Change, as opposed to Biden’s
title, might cost him votes of climate advocates but gain ones from within the fossil fuel
industry.

With regards to the design, structure and style of both campaigns, there are only few
similarities. Stylistic ones include the reliance on the national colours red, white and blue and
the general high level of formality. Another feature that both sites include is a pop-up window
asking for campaign contributions in the forms of monetary donations with pre-sets beginning
at 15$ (Biden) and 35$ (Trump) with no upper limit and registrations for volunteer work. Both
show the same moves of highlighting the importance of and calling for active aid for their

10
Anderson, „Incumbency effect“, 217.
cause by directly addressing the reader with the personal pronoun you and establishing
themselves as we, which also hints at an inclusion of the reader. Democrats highlight the
critical stage of campaigning for Joe, Kamala, and Democrats across the country next to a
depiction of Biden and his running mate, stressing their inclusive approach; while Republicans
features a more transactional approach and a focus on their insider knowledge by referring to
their Finance Team which informed them they could break a new fundraising record if
everyone steps up and donates just 35$ or more and putting more stress on Trump instead of
his running mate or party by drawing parallels between Trump and Uncle Sam, as the
personification of the USA, via a picture of Trump mirroring the latter’s iconic pose. While both
requests have the same purpose, the manner of delivery varies greatly, resulting in different
audiences being addressed. Democrats try to shift the spotlight away from Biden in order to
appeal to people opposed to him as a person to support their general idea, while Republicans
put Trump into focus, which hints more towards a strategy of mobilising conservatives
through his cult of personality than convincing undecided voters.

The difference in the general amount of information provided is striking, with the Republican
page featuring bullet points that outline results and intentions of policies, of which the most
important ones are repeated at the bottom of the page but provide rather little additional
information. The fact that there is the option to directly share the page on social media hints
to the purpose of spreading the information to as many people as possible. The Democratic
platform has far more extensive passages of text and is structured in an introduction, general
elaboration of purpose and key elements of the proposed plan. It is mostly structured along
sentences in bold and bullet points that are listed at first and subsequently divided into
subcategories and elaborated upon. Both feature cross-references to other sections of the
campaign’s plan for further information about their policy ideas. The Biden website at times
also features a less formal style than its counterpart, with the inclusion of contractions like it’s
often in need of repair or he’ll ensure those workers have good-paying jobs with a choice to
join a union. Democrat’s lower level of formality is most likely chosen to signal a closer
connection to readers and their lives, while the lack of which in the Republican’s proposal can
mostly be assigned to the absence of longer stretches of text.
The incumbent effect discussed earlier is highly visible in the content of both campaigns, as
the Trump campaign builds on past achievements instead of venturing into uncharted
territory or addressing problematic issues and the Biden campaign attacking Trump’s
shortcomings, such as neglecting the eminent threat of climate change, droughts, flooding
and extreme weather, and the official messaging concerning the Covid-19 pandemic. This is
also reflected in the different moves put forward. An interesting trend is the difference in
speech acts when talking about future plans. Both candidates completely refrain from using
passive voice structures to further the impression of them being active agents and involved.
While the majority of Biden’s proposals are formulated in commissive speech acts (90<),
opposed to Trump’s two instances, as he will launch a national effort aimed at creating jobs
or Biden will immediately invest in engines of sustainable job creation, in which he conveys
the impression of wanting to fulfil these promises in the future,11 Trump primarily keeps in the
past tense and present progressive, making use of declarative statements as in the
administration approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, supporting an
estimated total of 42.000 jobs and $2 billion in wages or kept campaign promise to get America
out of the Paris Climate Agreement to indicate the completion of tasks he set for himself.
Additionally, he incorporates subtle complaints, which are used to justify shortcomings, such
as his characterisation of the Paris Climate Agreement as unfair or the costly Obama-Era
regulations and costly fuel standards. In connection to this, a focus on names and entities
working under the administration, such as President Trump or The Department of the
Interior/Energy indicating agency and an active participation on what has been accomplished
can be observed.12 Keeping this in mind, Trump seems to target those potential voters who
do not have any specific requests or complaints about his current energy and environmental
policy and ones who are against Obama-Era policies, since it shows no intention of expanding
on the range of goals concerning the topic. Biden’s plan, on the other hand, provides such a
vast array of topics, promises and possible starting points that it can seem hard to realise or
even to predict which ones are feasible and what their order of priority is. Due to this, the
more narrow Republican focus might be more appealing to voters who find their points of
interest to be considered more concretely in their proposal, while the Democratic agenda
provides more options in case one’s interests are not addressed by the former.

The lexical fields incorporated in the two proposals vary considerably due to several reasons.
The most prevalent ones being the range of topics and the extent to which they are discussed.

11
Micah Spriggs. “A Story of ‘Us vs. Them’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Blame Tactics in Political Campaign
Speeches.” (M.A. diss., Hofstra University, 2020), 52-53.
12
Micah Spriggs. “A Story of ‘Us vs. Them’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Blame Tactics in Political Campaign
Speeches.” (M.A. diss., Hofstra University, 2020), 56.
The Republican campaign focussed on topics beneficial to their profiling as a successful
administration13, which included amongst other lexical fields of ‘economy and benefits
towards it’ (job creation, facilitate economic growth), ‘domination’ (his administration acted
aggressively, unleash oil and gas production), ‘fossil fuel industry’ (pipelines, offshore drilling,
fossil energy projects) and ‘replacement of laws’ (revise, rescind, relax costly fuel standards,
streamline). Another major theme is that of ‘reliability’, with the website being called Promises
Made, Promises Kept, hinting more at past achievements than future endeavours. One
exception, which was at odds with most of the other themes was the field of ‘environmental
issues’ (environmental improvement, affordable clean energy rule, energy independence,
Arctic Wildlife Refuge), however, it is noteworthy that some words were mentioned in
connection with the rollback of existing environmental protections, and others were part of
government programmes’ names for policies to make them appeal to a broader audience.
Furthermore, the range of lexical fields is confined to the limited content of the website.
Likewise, there is only one lexical field regularly found in the Democratic campaign site that is
also represented in the Republican: that of ‘economics’, since proposals need to be founded
on a practical economic basis. Otherwise they follow the same strategy as explored before,
building on associations with ‘equality’ (union workforce, family sustaining jobs, no one is left
behind, low-income Americans, minority communities), ‘sustainability’ (climate resilient,
environmental justice, go clean, zero-emissions, soil management) and, as a critique of the
current administration, the field of ‘rejection’ (denying, leaving, ignored, failed, roll back,
neglected, irresponsible). With these themes and that of ‘consequences of climate change’
(natural disasters, polluters, climate crisis) which is entirely missing in Trump’s proposal,
Biden’s campaign tries to direct attention towards the shortcomings and neglected objectives
of his rival. Through this, it becomes clear that the focus of Trump’s campaign lies more heavily
on economic reasons and corporate interests than on an advancement of sustainable climate
policies and improved infrastructure for the public, with the only mention of infrastructure
being in connection to commercial pipelines.

13Lakshmi Narayanan. “How To set up your Election campaign website.” Callhub, October 30, 2017.
https://callhub.io/election-campaign-website/#5-2-the-donation-page
Conclusion:
It can be concluded that, based on the features analysed, Trump’s strategy is to secure
economically motivated voters by stressing his business successes and touching on a plethora
of wedge issues, which provide enough reason for certain groups of voters to invoke a feeling
of being represented, instead of proposing a divergence of his previous plans. The overall
structure and rhetoric used underlines this strategy, which is why I would deem it successful
in its goal of catering towards this specific group of the population. However, it is not effective
in accumulating a majority of votes when compared to the broader audience focus of his
challenger. Biden’s presented plan in more inclusive and targets a greater variety of voters,
but at the same time is so expansive that people might feel like the reasons for their voting
choice might be forgotten in the face of ones that are deemed more urgent to the whole of
society. Since voter turnout in the United States is rather low, a strategy relying on non-voters
registering is more likely to be successful than trying to sway voters of the other party.
Considering the natural advantage of an incumbent, the broad audience focus of the Biden
campaign would usually be less effective than in this case, but since the ideological divide in
the United States prompts many undecided voters to cast a ballot to prevent the candidate
they are less confident in, it may be the correct choice to appeal to this group of voters.
Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
“Energy And Environment,” Donald Trump Campaign: Promises Made, Promises Kept!, accessed
November 28, 2020, https://www.promiseskept.com/achievement/overview/energy-and-
environment/

“The Biden Plan to Build a Modern, Sustainable and an Equitable Clean Energy Future,” Joe Biden
Campaign: Joe’s Vision, accessed November 29, 2020. https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/

Secondary Sources:
Simon P. Anderson and Gerhard Glomm. “Incumbency Effects in Political Campaigns.” Public Choice
74 (1992): 207-219.

BBC News. „Donald Trump would ‘cancel’ Paris climate deal. May 27, 2016,
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36401174

Linda Boss, Christian Schemer, Nicoleta Corbu, Michael Hameleers, Ioannis Andreadis, Anne Schulz,
Desirée Schmuck, Carsten Reinemann and Nayla Fawzi. “The Effects of Populism as Social Identity
Frame on Persuasion and Mobilisation: Evidence from a 15-Country Experiment. European Journal of
Political Research 59, no. 1 (2019): 3-24.

Council of Europe. Internet and Electoral Campaigns. Study on the Use of Internet in Electoral
Campaigns, 2018. 18-19. https://rm.coe.int/use-of-internet-in-electoral-campaigns-/16807c0e24

Adam Gabbatt. „Donald Trump’s tirade on Mexico’s ‘drugs and rapists’ outrages US Latinos.” The
Guardian, June 16, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-
mexico-presidential-speech-latino-hispanic.
Erving Goffman. Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-
Hall, 1963).
James Hohmann. „The Daily 202: Trump‘s embrace of Confederate statues as a wedge issue
underscores Bannon’s enduring influence. The Washington Post, August 18, 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/08/18/daily-202-
trump-s-embrace-of-confederate-statues-as-a-wedge-issue-underscores-bannon-s-enduring-
influence/59965f8030fb0433811d69dc/
Julien Ludovic. “A Note on Stackelberg Competition,” Journal of Economics 103, no. 2 (2011): 171-
187.
Lakshmi Narayanan. “How To set up your Election campaign website.” Callhub, October 30, 2017.
https://callhub.io/election-campaign-website/#5-2-the-donation-page
Jacob Pramuk. “Read Joe Biden’s Full 2020 Democratic National Convention Speech.” CNBC politics,
August 21, 2020, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/21/joe-biden-dnc-speech-transcript.html#close
Micah Spriggs. “A Story of ‘Us vs. Them’: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Blame Tactics in Political
Campaign Speeches.” M.A. diss., Hofstra University, 2020.
Thomas Zeizoff, Todd Sandler (eds.), Daniel, Druckman (eds.) and Paul K. Huth (eds.). “How Social
Media is Changing Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 61, no. 9 (2017): 1980-1983.

Appendix 1:
Appendix 2:
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https://joebiden.com/clean-energy/ (see “Primary sources”)