Propaganda in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

        In doing research for a political science assignment, I came across a blog about propaganda throughout the 2016 presidential campaign. Herman and Chomsky discuss how propaganda "manufactures" public consent for economic, political, and social policies; candidates looking to be elected are a prime example of this, as they are vying to get the consent of the public to run the country through spinning their political policies in the most positive light possible. Following the propaganda model, a political campaign is essentially a business looking to sell its product to the voting public. This campaign season is particularly fascinating because there are so many GOP candidates, and because of this, any candidate needs to stand out in order to gain media coverage and in turn gain votes; this results in propaganda, most of which is positive and focused on the candidate's own campaign. It is unusual for a campaign to launch negative propaganda, but during this campaign season, Chris Christie issued a negative piece of propaganda in the form of a bumper sticker aimed at Hillary Clinton. The sticker says, "No Way in Hill," and it includes both Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign logo and Barack Obama's 2008 logo.

        While most candidates try to get the public's consent through positive propaganda for their own campaign, Christie has decided to make voters consent to his opinion that Hillary Clinton should not be elected through this bumper sticker. 

        Rand Paul is also utilizing a form of political propaganda in his campaign; he created a campaign poster that looks like an eye chart, asking the public to see him as an eye doctor (which he really is, but which does not actually apply to his presidential campaign) who can "correct their vision" regarding American politics. His website states, "Dr. Rand Paul is an ophthalmologist (eye doctor), serving in the US Senate. Professionally, he has corrected the vision of thousands and now will do the same thing in the White House.. and we're not talking about a new prescription for President Obama." I find this to be a pretty odd statement; maybe it is my political bias, but while it is creative and plays into something that makes Paul unique from other candidates in the race, the metaphor doesn't seem to apply to Rand Paul because his policies don't seem like the most "clear" out of all the candidates'.

https://store.randpaul.com/index.php/rand-paul-eye-chart.html

Here's the link to the political blog:
http://www.ithaca.edu/rhp/programs/cmd/blogs/posters_and_election_propaganda/tags/2016_election/