Trump Around the World

Trump Around the World

January 24, 2017

by Joshua Truksa

It is the first week of Trump’s presidency, and the headlines around the world range from neutral to foreboding. Some of the most worrisome originate from the United States’ neighbor to the north.

The Toronto Star is the largest newspaper in Canada. On Saturday, their front page article covering the inauguration began with-

“That clanking sound you hear is the United States pulling up the drawbridge, trying to wall itself off from the rest of the world.”

The Ottawa Citizen included the headline “A Sad Call to Make America Small,” and the Winnipeg Free Press labelled Trump’s inauguration speech as “dark and defiant.”

Across the pond, the Irish press appeared to be the most critical in the English-speaking world. Minced words were not on the menu of the country’s top three newspapers. The Irish Independent declared “America first: Trump’s new world order begins” and accused Trump of “[heralding] a new era of protectionism and isolationism.” The Irish Times said “Trump offers [a] fearful vision” as he “sticks to [his] dystopian theme,” and the Irish Examiner printed the headline “Dark rhetoric sets scene of ‘ravages and carnage.’”

Global Media on Alert

Social media around the world was also weary of the new Trump administration. The South African Broadcasting Corporation posted a poll on its Twitter feed asking “What does a Trump presidency mean for Africa?” Forty-three percent of 310 people voted “Is he aware of Africa?”

On their Facebook page, The Straits Times of Singapore posted the image of the front page of their printed Sunday edition- “Trump withdraws US from TPP deal on Day 1,” it reads.

Pastry Plagarism

Despite the goodwill behind the proceeds for this 'Salute to Our Armed Services' ball, word has come full circle about President Trump's inauguration cake.

Thanks to a tweet-tip from Chef Goldman, who made Obama's second term inauguration cake, it appears Trump's baked goody was an exact copy of our former president's.

The Washington Post interviewed the baker responsible for this recreation, Tiffany MacIsaac, who said her bakery tried to encourage an independent creation for the ball, but the client requesting the cake said they required an exact replica.

The bakery helped diffuse the tension surrounding the cake by posting a shout-out to Chef Goldman on Instagram.

Emotions have been running high in regards to inauguration comparisons and predictions against our current Chief Executive, but it may be safe to say something as minor as copy-catting cake designs should be low on our list of things to worry about.

Celebrities March

Individuals in all areas came together in large numbers to march against the newly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump. The Women's Marches are said to be the largest demonstration in U.S. history, and they included a wide variety of supporters.

Sifting through a portion of the media coverage from the marches was difficult considering the amount of information out there to use. I had noticed throughout the duration of the marches that there was a significant amount of coverage on the celebrities that were not only attending the marches, but speaking and making their presence and opinions known. I wanted to search past their own social media pages and see how the mainstream media news outlets covered their appearances.

Fox News listed certain celebrities that spoke and included their speeches throughout the story. Celebrities like Chelsea Handler, Shia Labeouf and Stephen Baldwin's take on the presidential candidate was the main focus on this particular article. For the most part, pretty basic. On the other hand, CNN touched base on this topic and had a bit more to say. Above the text, a video was included of reporters discussing their views on this topic. Among their own views, they included President Trump's views on the rallies and celebrity attendance.

"Watched protests yesterday but was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn't these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly."

In addition to celebrities attendance rates throughout the rallies, I was also unaware up until researching the topic that these marches took place all around the world. New York Times included pictures of marches happening in Peru, Australia, London, Kenya, Mexico and countless areas all around the world. It was refreshing to see that unity worldwide.

Crowd Estimates for the Women's Marches

I decided to do my analysis on crowd estimates at the Women's Marches because it was the topic of most interest to me over the course of this past memorable weekend.

womensmarch.com, Jan. 22

Business Insider reported on Saturday, the day of the March around 2 p.m., that more people attended the marches than attended President Trump's inauguration. The title of the story is "Aerial photos show the contrast between crowds at Trump’s inauguration and the Women's March" and the story itself features images of the National Mall in Washington D.C., on both Inauguration Day and the Women's March held there one day later using Earthcam. Reporters wrote that organizers used headcounts at the event and metro subway tickets to estimate crowd size at the Washington March, concluding that fewer riders were tallied on Inauguration Day.

Nytimes.com, Jan. 22

On Sunday, news outlets were churning out stories about how difficult it is to get concrete crowd estimates for the marches.

The Atlantic reported Monday that sister marches in 550 of 673 cities and towns in the U.S. that held marches have been compiled for attendance in a spreadsheet by  Jeremy Pressman, a professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, using news story crowd estimates from local police and metro counts. An additional 100 cities internationally were also added to this tally. The title of the article is "The Exhausting Work of Tallying America's Largest Protest" is an informational piece about legitimizing crowd counts at the march and future marches.

The most accurate crowd numbers that appear to be currently circulating were compiled by university professors Erica Chenoweth of the University of Denver and Jeremy Pressman of the University of Connecticut. The last update indicated that between 3.2 and 4.7 million people attended Womens Marches in the U.S. and 3.4 and 5 million people globally.

University of Connecticut

Here are some photos from the Women's March in Austin on Saturday:

Sources:

Business Insider 

The Atlantic 

Numbers by Erica Chenoweth and Jeremy Pressman

The world watching Trump

On January 20th, the United States of America and the world witnessed the inauguration of the 45th president of the US, Donald J. Trump.  A mix of reactions flooded the media around the world as the new leader swear in front of a crowd of people of a size not expected.  In this blog, we'll discuss the reactions to this inauguration in three different countries; countries that have been involved in President Donald Trump's campaign.

MEXICO

Mexico has been in the mind and future plans of Donald Trump since day 1, the day he announced his campaign to run for the presidency of the United States.  Trump remarks about immigrants reach global coverage as he express his plans to stop or decrease the number of immigrants arriving to the country, but Mexico was among other countries attacked by the now president with remarks like "when Mexico sends its people, they are not sending their best," "they are bringing drugs, bringing crime, they're rapists and some, I assume are good people."

Front page of Vanguardia (Mexico)

Vanguardia, a newspaper printed in Mexico and distributed nationwide, shows in its front page a bomb with the hair of the new president and the phrase "y pese a todo, LLEGO ERA DEL TEMOR." (and after all, an era of fear has arrived)  The front page of Vanguardia covers details of the inauguration and how this new era of fear will not only affect Mexico economically, but also socially as many Mexicans live in the US.

UNITED KINGDOM

Many newspapers announced formally the inauguration of the 45th president of the United States, but some others opted for the real feeling their nations were having towards the new mandatory and the future for their relationship with the US.  

Front page of The Independent (United Kingdom)



The Independent, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, created a special edition covering the inauguration with details of the event as well as statistics and discussion of the plans proposed by President Donald Trump.  In the front page, a picture of Donald Trump with the headline "So help us God" shows a less optimistic approach towards the new president.

CHINA

China has also been in President Trump's mind since the beginning of the campaign.  President Trump has spoken about China and the way is stepping the US in a business race.  China at first tried to stay optimistic about the incoming of our president but, comments in his presidential race and recent plans to help bring the economy and jobs back to the US, has the Chinese wonder if they should love or hate the new president.

Front page of the South China Morning Post.

SOURCE

www.vanguardia.com.mx

www.independent.co.uk

www.scmp.com/frontpage



Media v. Trump Argue: Crowd Size

In an unsurprising turn of events I find myself enveloped in a conversation about crowd size at Trump’s inauguration. It seems even with multiple news outlets reporting the same information, the Trump Administration is certain that the media is trying to undermine them. Period.

Days after the inauguration, this is still a hot topic which is being covered by organizations from Fox to The Times, who all agree that the Administration is choosing to promote “alternative facts”.

I’ve talked to several different people, all of whom support Trump, are in denial about the crowd size. I’ve heard it all. “Trump had the most attended inauguration ever.” “The media are out to cut down Trump.” “Leftist liberals can’t handle the fact that Trump won.” It goes on. Of course, this is not to say that all Trump supporters believe this.

Watch: Chris Wallace Argues with Reince Priebus About Crowd Size

It is worrying that simple facts create huge rifts within the country. It doesn’t help either that Trump is willing to promote false narratives, even after being sworn in. While news outlets across the board agree, the crowd was significantly smaller than Obama’s. Still private citizens remain divided on the issue. It just shows that the rift between President Trump and the media is growing wider, not smaller.

Some Humor on Inauguration Day

The part of the inauguration that stood out to me the most was George W. Bush having a difficult time figuring out how to put on a rain poncho properly. On a day that so many Americans were scared of what was to come, Bush brought some light humor to the media. I love how quick people on social media grabbed the photos and started adding captions.

The original six most popular pictures that people started making into memes. Photo from Metro.uk

What really had me going back to my computer and searching on Google to see more of these memes was that I saw major news sources grabbing it and telling the story. I thought that NPR did a good job telling the story as they pulled other politicians and made fun of them as well. Who could forget Mitt Romney in 2012 making a comment about raingear to some NASCAR fans? Or how many people missed that Rick Perry struggled to blow a bubble as the rabbi spoke during the inauguration.

Another news source to grab this poncho mishap was Time. Though I did enjoy the memes they decided to share on their website, I felt like they could have had a little more. However, I did like how they included memes of Bush’s facial expressions from earlier in the day.

I was kind of surprised when I saw that even CBS ran a story about Bush’s struggles during Trump’s inauguration. They have a nice story to go along with it and some of the photos of Bush struggling with the poncho. But what struck me odd about this article is that even though CBS published the story about Bush’s struggles, they do not even mention how people were taking the photos and sharing them quickly. They didn’t even show all of the funny moments Bush had with the poncho. Instead, they added a large photo of Bill Clinton playing with balloons at the Democratic National Convention this summer. I get they were trying to show that this wasn’t the first time a former president was caught doing something funny but Clinton had already had his time of fame on the internet for that moment.