Polarizing Figures in America: How Does the Rest of the World View Us?
What’s the global conversation surrounding Donald Trump?
As of the beginning of February, Trump leads all republican candidates with almost 31% of the vote. Whether you’re a supporter of trump, against him, or think he’s going to drop out like he seemingly always does, you cannot argue the conversations the Republican hopeful starts. Whether he is a celebrity, a serious politician, or just another bad look for America, Donald Trump is a common topic of conversation in America.
So what does The United Kingdom think about Trump, where he was almost banned? What are immigrants from Mexico’s thoughts on him, or Muslims he’s trying to blockade from entering the country? Does the rest of the world care or is Trump a non-topic?
Although it seems obvious, the rest of the world doesn’t view America in the same way I, my peers or any other American do. I didn’t realize how differently some Europeans or even Asians think of our country until I spent a summer abroad. Hindsight is 20/20 though, right?
I began my search looking at BBC and The Guardian. Both had articles on the front page of their websites about Trump and his controversy over the Iowa Caucus. Using a Twitter advanced search, I filtered to all of the Tweets in London, England containing the words “Donald Trump”. Most of the Tweets were fairly negative but on the lighthearted side with this being the best one:
From a media standpoint, much of the news coverage was simply reporting on Trump and the currents of his campaign. There seems to be a lot more interest in American Politics in England than I would have anticipated, with the BBC even having their own 2016 U.S. Election section. Overall I would very much compare my brief study of the English coverage of Donald Trump to American coverage; a lot of jokes but real news coverage as well.
Again I did an advanced search on Twitter, but this time I searched for tweets in Iztapalapa, Mexico, the country’s second largest city. Much of the news was covering Trump’s activity during the recent Iowa Caucus, but the tweets from personal accounts revealed a dark mood. “world’s most dangerous man” is just one of the many insults and critiques Mexican’s seemed to have for Mr. Trump.
Surprisingly, I had a very difficult time finding news coverage on Donald Trump from Mexican news sites. I visited both El Universal as well as El Informador, neither had any recent stories about Trump, although it was pretty difficult for me to navigate the Spanish sites. This is odd considering the way Trump has talked about Mexican’s, coupled with America’s close proximity to Mexico, you would think the Mexican media would have some sort of coverage on Trump, often.
What I find most surprising is that I found almost no Tweets about Trump when I searched in Syria, nor Indonesia, the largest Islamic country. So I decided to see what some of the most popular Muslim blogs are and found muslimmatters.org. Trump was not a front page topic. I had to search his name, but found plenty of negative articles:
Although there were plenty of articles on Donald Trump, most of them were outdated. Trump does not seem to be as heavily covered on muslimsmatter.org. It is interesting to see who really cares about the presidential hopeful. It seems the countries he bashes the most, aren’t as concerned as many others.
Perhaps this is how other countries have always viewed America: a spectacle with out-there celebrities and politicians. Maybe other countries have there own out-there celebrities and politicians to worry about? Either way, the way we communicate in the digital space that is the internet will allow all of us to gain a greater grasp on different perspectives.
