Donald Trump's Influence On Politics

Donald Trump’s favorability and popularity are growing as a GOP candidate for the 2016 presidential election. Over the last month Trump has given us messages on immigration, the economy, and Washington. His messages have taken him straight to first place among Republicans nationwide (Borger, 2015). Trump’s message on immigration certainly stirred up controversy, especially with his comments towards illegal immigrants and Hispanics. Sen. Marco Rubio, who is another GOP candidate, and of Hispanic descent, found Trump’s comments offensive, inaccurate, and divisive. The Hispanic communities overall view of the Republican Party has decreased as a result of Trump’s comments, and it could likely hurt the party come the election in 2016. There is a

Nelson and Quick (2013) define influence as, “The process of affecting the thoughts, behavior, or feelings of another person” (p. 405). In addition, Nelson and Quick say, “Influence tactics are used for impression management, which is when individuals use influence tactics to control others’ impressions of them” (p. 406). There are many types of influence tactics that are used in organizations today such as pressure, upward appeals, exchange, coalition, ingratiation, and consultation. The influence tactic that Trump, and every other politician engage in is exchange influence. Exchange influence is where the person makes a promise that you will receive something if you support them (Nelson & Quick, 2013). Donald Trump said, “We need a leader that can bring back our jobs, can bring back our manufacturing, can bring back our military, can take care of our vets. We need somebody that literally will take this country and make it great again” (Borger, 2015). Trump is delivering this message promising that if you vote for him as president, he will back up what he

According to Nelson and Quick (2013) there are five reasons why executives fail in using their power effectively. The first reason is that they see themselves as dominating their environment. Donald Trump is adamant about his self-promotion, which is why he comes out and says outlandish comments such as the promotion of anti-vaccination myths. Second, they think they have all the answers. Trump has embarrassed himself at times with uninformed opinions or remarks that are myths such as proclaiming Obama is not a U.S. citizen. This shows that Trump doesn’t have a filter or bothers to check his facts before making profound statements. Third, they ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t 100 percent behind them. Trump is known for not surrounding himself with people who oppose or do not agree with me. Trump is all about promoting his own narrow mindedness and only wants people who are 100% behind him (Borger, 2005). You either are or you are not. Next, they stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past. Most see Donald Trump as one who has never experienced failure when it comes to finances. Trump has filed for bankruptcy before and even manipulated bankruptcy laws so he would get off the hook easily and the American people would be at risk (Slater, 2005). Finally, the last is they have no clear boundaries between their personal interests. Trump says that the Mexicans that