Rationale Behind Republicans’ Changing Endorsements of Donald Trump
Throughout the past year, Republicans have been flipping back and forth between endorsing Donald Trump and un-endorsing him. These decisions were made based on how Trump was currently being portrayed in the media as well as the number of other Republican politicians who were choosing to endorse him. For example, after the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape of Trump disrespecting women, many Republicans withdrew their endorsements because they believed that the video would be his downfall and that the whole party would un-endorse him. But since then, some Republicans have decided to re-endorse Trump due to his subsequent political successes as well as him attacking several prominent Republican politicians who had un-endorsed him early on.
This back and forth with endorsements can be explained by a concept known as information cascading, which is a topic that was discussed both in the textbook and in class. An information cascade is when someone observes the actions of others and then decides to take part in the same actions despite possible contradictions they had in their mind before observing these other people. This was relevant when Republicans were deciding on whether or not to endorse Trump because they did not want to be alone in their decision and they based their actions off of the direction that they believed the party was going in. So when some Republicans began un-endorsing Trump after the 2005 video was released, many others were influenced by this and decided to follow suit, and the same thing happened in reverse with Republicans re-endorsing Trump after some of his political successes. This shows how topics such as information cascading are relevant in real-world situations.