Part I: The Beauty Contest Why do they hate us? We in the press always screw up this question. Many of the biggest journalistic fiascoes in recent history involved failed attempts at introspection. Whether on behalf of the country or ourselves, when we look in the mirror, we inevitably report back things that aren’t there.
Chomsky is one source for theories on the topic of the media as spectacle, but certainly not the only one. I would also recommend the seminal tome by the late Situationist author Guy Debord, _The Society of the Spectacle_, which is available online (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guy-debord-the-society-of-the-spectacle.pdf), as well as the work of Neil Postman, especially _Amusing Ourselves to Death_.
I think you're giving the media, and Trump, too much credit. Couldn't the voters have been correct? They were getting screwed by the parties and the media, who were only self-serving. A January 2016 report from RAND found the most important variable in determining a Trump voter was whether someone believed that they had no power to influence their government. For most, Trump was their only option.
Clinton lost because she owned up to despising half the electorate. This was a record low for the party generally seen as elitist anyway. The press did not do this. She did.
"I thought the failure of the press in 2016 would lead to a prolonged period of introspection and re-evaluation. Instead, we created an environment in which reporters are MORE COMMITTED THAN EVER TO THE ELITE POLICING BEHAVIORS that won us Trump in the first place" [EMPHASIS added].
The all-knowing, self-righteous, moralizing powers-that-be of the Democratic Establishment/Elite engaged in this 'mother knows best' policing of behaviors to tip the scales of the primaries in 2016 and then again in 2020 in favor of the Establishment/Elite's sanctioned & preordained candidates; they've gone full-tilt with public-health policy response to the pandemic.
If Republicans tend to the credo that the 'invisible hand' of the free market knows best, the Democratic analogue seems to be that the 'invisible hand' of the Democratic Party & Establishment/Elite knows best.
It's fascinating to ponder a counterhistory in which the Democrats actually simply allowed, well, democracy -- the Republicans allowed this and got & accepted Trump; what would the world look like today if the 2016 Democratic primaries were allowed to just play itself out?
The hilarity of it all is that the Establishment/Elite seem to believe that all this string-pulling & scale-tipping is what will win them elections.
People hunt ducks with SHOTGUNS. It is actually ILLEGAL to hunt them with rifles. I will give you that there are politicians dumb enough to show up for a duck hunt with a rifle. It would be funny in a "sad but expected" way.
Ok, I subscribed right away after reading about The Fairway (great name) on Recode. I got to the Recode piece because I have a Google alert for your name. Now, I've been reading aggressive journalism since I was about 14, in 1965, with The Realist (I subscribed) and my both-doctors parents avant-garde-style reading tastes, for example, the Evergreen Review. My father the psychoanalyst was into ideas like that. And I would pick up quotes from E F Stone. I too read and was very impressed with Autobiography of Malcolm X. I have not read Manufacturing Consent, but similar ideas have been with me since the 1960s. I understand how the TV networks and the NYTimes police ideology invisibly but with tremendous power. But here's the point I want to make now: what are we actually about in this massive herd of human animals? Any social system requires some kind of information system, ie., propaganda apparatus, just to inform the public of basic facts and what they are supposed to do. The current version (Trump is Great/Trump is Bad) is to vomit. It is sick and insane. But what would a good system look like? In fact, what would a good human civilization look like in this age of techo-population destruction of the natural world? I am no longer sure there is any such picture. I love your work. Please go on. But if you or Chomsky or anyone started a brand new system, where would it go? Where could it go?
Whatever is at work now was at work during the Grant administration. I'd like to see some of the newspapers of that day. Grant is one of my heroes, but I am ashamed of him for his views of the American Indians and his happiness over veterans finding gold on their land and forcing them out or just murdering them. America is so old not much about it is without precedent. Of course now Kavanaugh takes the cake. He is as much an inventor of precedents as Trump is a liar about where Obama was born. Now to be a cake to eat comes Eric Holder to play on TV the AG he pretended to be when in the damned office. So what if Clinton made Meyer Lansky into the leading Financial Planner, Financial Engineer of the age, there were still laws against fraud, not to mention anti trust. Asset stripping, well, they get to do that legally. Great news about Toys R US, since "If you want to see the future, go to a toy store." is a real truism.
This writing is so charged, Matt. A perfect blend of fury and despair. We're right there with you.
Chomsky is one source for theories on the topic of the media as spectacle, but certainly not the only one. I would also recommend the seminal tome by the late Situationist author Guy Debord, _The Society of the Spectacle_, which is available online (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/guy-debord-the-society-of-the-spectacle.pdf), as well as the work of Neil Postman, especially _Amusing Ourselves to Death_.
I think you're giving the media, and Trump, too much credit. Couldn't the voters have been correct? They were getting screwed by the parties and the media, who were only self-serving. A January 2016 report from RAND found the most important variable in determining a Trump voter was whether someone believed that they had no power to influence their government. For most, Trump was their only option.
Clinton lost because she owned up to despising half the electorate. This was a record low for the party generally seen as elitist anyway. The press did not do this. She did.
So spot on I might throw up.
"I thought the failure of the press in 2016 would lead to a prolonged period of introspection and re-evaluation. Instead, we created an environment in which reporters are MORE COMMITTED THAN EVER TO THE ELITE POLICING BEHAVIORS that won us Trump in the first place" [EMPHASIS added].
The all-knowing, self-righteous, moralizing powers-that-be of the Democratic Establishment/Elite engaged in this 'mother knows best' policing of behaviors to tip the scales of the primaries in 2016 and then again in 2020 in favor of the Establishment/Elite's sanctioned & preordained candidates; they've gone full-tilt with public-health policy response to the pandemic.
If Republicans tend to the credo that the 'invisible hand' of the free market knows best, the Democratic analogue seems to be that the 'invisible hand' of the Democratic Party & Establishment/Elite knows best.
It's fascinating to ponder a counterhistory in which the Democrats actually simply allowed, well, democracy -- the Republicans allowed this and got & accepted Trump; what would the world look like today if the 2016 Democratic primaries were allowed to just play itself out?
The hilarity of it all is that the Establishment/Elite seem to believe that all this string-pulling & scale-tipping is what will win them elections.
"Iowa, I was hissed at by campaign staffer" is missing "a".
"Stephen Colbert invited him on the show — and had drink beer and eat peanuts." is missing "him".
Attention editor!
Change this before it becomes a book:
"convincing carrying a rifle on a duck hunt."
People hunt ducks with SHOTGUNS. It is actually ILLEGAL to hunt them with rifles. I will give you that there are politicians dumb enough to show up for a duck hunt with a rifle. It would be funny in a "sad but expected" way.
Excellent work. Concise and to the point. Thoughtful and analytic
Ok, I subscribed right away after reading about The Fairway (great name) on Recode. I got to the Recode piece because I have a Google alert for your name. Now, I've been reading aggressive journalism since I was about 14, in 1965, with The Realist (I subscribed) and my both-doctors parents avant-garde-style reading tastes, for example, the Evergreen Review. My father the psychoanalyst was into ideas like that. And I would pick up quotes from E F Stone. I too read and was very impressed with Autobiography of Malcolm X. I have not read Manufacturing Consent, but similar ideas have been with me since the 1960s. I understand how the TV networks and the NYTimes police ideology invisibly but with tremendous power. But here's the point I want to make now: what are we actually about in this massive herd of human animals? Any social system requires some kind of information system, ie., propaganda apparatus, just to inform the public of basic facts and what they are supposed to do. The current version (Trump is Great/Trump is Bad) is to vomit. It is sick and insane. But what would a good system look like? In fact, what would a good human civilization look like in this age of techo-population destruction of the natural world? I am no longer sure there is any such picture. I love your work. Please go on. But if you or Chomsky or anyone started a brand new system, where would it go? Where could it go?
Whatever is at work now was at work during the Grant administration. I'd like to see some of the newspapers of that day. Grant is one of my heroes, but I am ashamed of him for his views of the American Indians and his happiness over veterans finding gold on their land and forcing them out or just murdering them. America is so old not much about it is without precedent. Of course now Kavanaugh takes the cake. He is as much an inventor of precedents as Trump is a liar about where Obama was born. Now to be a cake to eat comes Eric Holder to play on TV the AG he pretended to be when in the damned office. So what if Clinton made Meyer Lansky into the leading Financial Planner, Financial Engineer of the age, there were still laws against fraud, not to mention anti trust. Asset stripping, well, they get to do that legally. Great news about Toys R US, since "If you want to see the future, go to a toy store." is a real truism.