Conspiracies and Publicity Show the Face of America
Trump, Biden, and Publicity
For many people running for election, a great challenge is getting your name out there. Putting your name forward as a possible candidate can be the difference between winning and losing. This is why for many candidates, even bad publicity can be good. This concept was immortalized by Phineas T Barnum’s statement “There’s no such thing as bad publicity”. The idea is that as long as people are talking about you, your name is spreading and people will then take an interest. From there you can use that interest to your own needs.
Yet in looking just at the presidential election of 2020, we see the reverse to be true. Comparing Donald Trump (red) and Joe Biden (blue) we see that for the past year Trump has consistently been higher than Joe Biden in google searches. The comparison would lead most to believe that Trump is more popular and noteworthy and therefore have won the election. Even after the election Trump stays ahead in searches. Remember if Barnum’s concept is to be true, the content of these searches are irrelevant. Yet as we know Trump lost by a considerable margin and it was actually Biden who took the White House.
So what gives? Biden winning despite the comparison flies in the face of Barnum’s idea for publicity. The answer is clear, Barnum was wrong. With the onset of COVID 19 and many other issues within the Trump White House, much news turned negative on him. The negativity naturally connects to these google searches as most of them were probably returning results that showed Trump in a negative way. So what we see is that there does exist a thing as bad publicity and that Barnum was wrong. Trump led when it came to publicity yet it was so negative that he still lost. It is clear that the content of the publicity is just as important as the publicity itself.
Click here to look at the chart yourself: Joe Biden, Donald Trump — Explore — Google Trends
Conspiracy Theories in America
Conspiracy theories can be a great and fun pastime. Some are just pure fun. For example when creating this section I found one that says that there are too many mattress stores in the Chicagoland area. So many in fact that there is no way they could all be financially viable as how many people are actually going out and buying new mattresses. Some of them are within a block of each other. The only explanation is that it is all a money laundering scheme.
A theory like the mattress store one is fun. You get to have a laugh and no one is truly harmed. Yet in our country we have seen a large spike of conspiracy theories of a much more dangerous variety. Qanon supporters have openly attacked The Capital and Climate change deniers plus Flat Earth societies have repeatedly undermined science and the policies that go along with them. These conspiracies are no joke and have had consequences in our real world. According to an analysis of Google search data however, we see that Qanon is way above the others. While Roswell conspiracies have maintained popularity (a conspiracy involving Roswell, New Mexico as a location for mind control and aliens), Qanon has exploded and is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Qanon is briefly (and very briefly) a group of people believing Trump is working from the inside of the government to stop the Democratic party and the remainder of the deep state from controlling America. There is a lot more that goes along with this theory but it as the attack on the capital shows it is a dangerous one. The attack does not stop there, it is now seeping into our legislative system. Marjorie Taylor Greene a US House Representative has now won her election in Georgia and is in Washington now. The Trends on Google don’t lie. A portion of the American public is taking the conspiracy very seriously and according to Trends, it may be more than you think.
Click here to look at the charts yourself: Qanon, flat earth, 9/11 Hoax, Roswell, Climate change denial — Explore — Google Trends
