The Art of Neopolitical War

by Ujwal Rajaputhra

I. LAYING PLANS
In traditional combat vernacular, Election Day is the neopolitical parallel of
D-Day; slick-tongued addresses, juicy, final slanders, and legions of ballots cast in
draped booths are just constituents of a greater social manifold. The flaming
pandemic of political unrest flares into its final, Tuesday hours, before being cooled
by the awaited outcome – the war’s victor. In political terms, Sun Tzu would christen
such: the newest leader of the United States republic and assumed Commander-in-
Chief of the armed forces. Candidates strategize their P.R. regalia and campaign in
wise foresight of the blood drenched in victory’s wake. However, postmodern
maturation of America’s Silicon Valley culture has cleared the battlefield a new front:
Social Media.
The product couldn’t be more amusing. Current combatants (and
presidential nominees) are Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and business
mogul, Donald Trump. Both utilize social media to advocate their presidencies while
defaming one another’s, but wield it in entirely different lights; Trump takes a more
colloquial approach, spitting libelous headlines like “If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy
her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America” (now deleted), and
“Obama just enforced Crooked Hillary. He wants four more years of Obama–but
nobody else does!” – to which Clinton famously retorted, “Delete your account,”
over Twitter.
Despite her pointed one-liner, Clinton typically refrains from assuming the
brazen persona of her more farcical opponent, prioritizing domestic affability and
social transparency. The democratic nominee maintains a presence over a spectrum
of social media platforms, treasuring a pervasive-but-formal relationship with the
tense public; this is reflected in her LinkedIn follower base of 454k, massive in
comparison to Trump’s meager 4k, and presence over the Q&A platform, Quora.
Clinton’s campaign is also more creative in their social outreach, launching the social
media tool, TrumpYourself, to ignite a lighthearted wave of discontent throughout the
masses. The comical tool exploded among the millennial community, naturally
attractive to social groups with fresh, liberal philosophies. In fact, democratic parties
have been optimizing the influence of interactive applications since the 2008
presidential race, in which social media was essential to President Obama’s victory.
Now, in 2016, Hillary Clinton expounds upon that strategy to trickle her influence
into the cracks and crevices of as many social outlets as possible.
The republican nominee, however, seems to occupy a polar sphere; Trump
dominates Clinton on mainstream platforms, surpassing her Twitter following by
almost 2.5 million, Facebook by five million, and Instagram by 500k. His demotic
visage is distinct from his opponent in that, according to the Wall Street Journal,
over 75% of his shared content is of the general public, while over 75% of Clinton’s
is of herself. In result, Trump’s social presence dons a badge of personal pellucidity –
as opposed to Clinton’s professionalism – and garners the financial tycoon over
eighty million more Google search results. Such tactics to stir popularity and
notoriety rather than to persuade or explicate acts as a blatant double-edged sword;
Trump succeeds in harnessing public eminence, but furls a brume of ambivalence
over his battleplan’s ultimate bearings. Whether or not the fame incurred will
translate into Yes-ballots is a fate that can only be seen on election day. As of now, a
comprehensive look at the online dispositions of the two candidates reveals the
nature of their political identities:
Donald Trump is the idiomatic, raw-boned republican who excites the
masses with brash honesty and flavorsome drama; Hillary Clinton is the logistical,
straight-backed democrat who delivers the public with urbane clarity and widespread,
academic sanctimony.
And so, it’s only logical that each candidate and their digital team prioritize
platforms in respect to their cunnings. Perusing the evidence of it now – accessible at
only the cusps of our fingertips – we can see easily that both are succeeding in their
own respects. It just goes to show how far social media has come in audience
marketing, and how social services attract demographics with virtues intrinsic to
themselves.
And as for who will ultimately win the battle to become the 45th President of
the United States, I believe Sun Tzu would again say something along the lines of:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred
battles.”