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Yet Another Theory of Trump
Here’s another theory of Trump. Well, it’s not really a theory, more just a set of disparate observations. I’ve broken it into chunks so you can tell me which parts you agree with, don’t agree with, and why:
- Trump means ratings. Trump means pageviews. Trump means advertiser sponsorship. The media (very much including Ricochet) deserves a large share of the blame for the Rise of Trump, in so far as it’s driven by relentless competition for profit. The media gave Trump a massive amount of free publicity, not realizing — because the media is part of a clueless elite — that Trump was not just an entertaining bonanza for ratings and a guaranteed-clickbait diversion, but a serious political candidate who spoke to and for a very significant number of their fellow Americans.
- The opening of the ownership of broadcast channels, cable, and satellite to private investors has changed our civic culture, and not for the better. It did not result in a competition to provide informative news coverage to a civic-minded public. It resulted in just what you’d expect: competition, period — and thus a race to the bottom for ratings. The result was the creation of a mass culture of empty commercialism and short attention spans unconnected to deeper spiritual, moral, or civic values. Shopping channels, infomercials, product placement, and reality TV gave rise to a population fascinated, even obsessed, with consumer brands, products, celebrities, and super-celebrities. The Rise of Trump or someone like Trump was, in this culture, inevitable.
- The Internet, likewise, failed to meet its potential as an instrument for communicating conservative political ideas, traditional and religious values, and democratic civic mores. Only media outlets with well-established brand names and an already-large audience, or huge financial resources, have been able to enter the Internet media market and draw the attention of the public in significant numbers. The profit model of major media and their portals (Facebook, Google) is based on selling goods. The audience is no longer captive — as it was in the time of newspapers and the broadcast cartel — and thus there’s ferocious competition to amuse it and keep it from switching to another channel or clicking on another site. The media has severely cut back on news reporting and analysis; what little reporting they do is often based on press releases from corporations and lobby groups, foreign and domestic. (The number of people who work in PR now vastly exceeds the number who work in investigative journalism.) There’s a massive focus on providing shows and websites that are immediately attractive to audiences and advertisers: sex, sports, violence, and comedy, rather than detailed and informative reports about complex trade negotiations, the budget, tax reform, or health care.
- Advertisers don’t, generally, like programs and websites with complexity and disturbing reporting that interferes with the “buying mood.” They seek programs, themes, and stories that lightly entertain and fit in with the spirit of the primary purpose of program: selling their products. (Thus people are far more likely to read about restaurants and vacation destinations abroad than elections or deeper geopolitical trends.)
- Western elites, political and economic, understood the fall of the Berlin Wall as a vindication of free-market capitalism. The victory was so complete and so overwhelming that regardless of evidence, this elite has blindly assumed free trade to be always and everywhere benevolent and even democratic (although exceptions are allowed when private firms need subsidies and bailouts). The mainstream media, which is part of this elite, internalized this ideology.
- The steady encroachment of marketing and advertising into every aspect of our lives displaced both religion and the political public sphere, replacing it with a shallow consumer culture unsuited to thoughtful, democratic participation. Increasingly, we live in a world of virtual communities built by advertisers and based on consumer demographics.
- Whereas once we lived in a world of physical communities, sharing a social life and common concerns with our fellow citizens — of all classes — increasingly we live in virtual communities that may superficially be political, but whose chief purpose is to buy and sell goods, not to create or service the public political sphere and a healthful democracy.
- This social sorting has been accompanied by geographic sorting: Increasingly, we literally have no idea how the other half lives. They don’t live in our neighborhood; they don’t watch the same television, and we don’t even talk to them on the Internet. In fact, we deliberately “unfriend” people who don’t share our view of the world. (This helps to account, for example, for the massive disjunct between the Ricochet primary and the real primary.)
- Non-stop entertainment (including sports) doesn’t just help to sell goods. It is, even if inadvertently, a vehicle for the transmission of the elite class’s political ideology, as well as the contemporary equivalent Roman circuses. It diverts the public from politics, reinforces the beliefs of the elite class, and creates political apathy — until the dam breaks.
- The public has nonetheless been aware that it has been working harder with stagnant or declining incomes; it has inadequate medical care at high cost, and education is the pathway to the elite class — but education is increasingly unaffordable, and the culture of our educational institutions increasingly bizarre. It knows that things are done in their name all over the world, often involving their sacrifice or that of their families, but not, seemingly, to their benefit. Few understand our foreign policy or its history, because the media provides almost no substantive information that would help them place any of it in context. Neither does our educational system. The media does not see providing this information as its key responsibility. Its key responsibility is to shareholders and advertisers.
- Case in point: NAFTA. Substantial American majorities opposed NAFTA. Only the elite favored it. But media editorials, news coverage, and “experts” overwhelmingly reflected elite preference. The “experts” repeatedly intoned that the benefits of NAFTA were obvious and understood by all qualified authorities, and that only demagogues and “special interests” were opposed to it. (The “special interests” who were the losers included lower middle-class white males.) The media dealt with the awkward fact that polls showed steady majority opposition to the agreement mainly by ignoring it or occasionally suggesting the public was uninformed and didn’t recognize its own interests.
- The lower-middle class, white men in particular, has been under siege in the United States for the past several decades, adversely affected by the deflationary policies of the 1980s, corporate downsizing, globalization, and the government’s support of, or indifference to, the damage being done to them. While this class experienced significantly diminished wages and benefits, more onerous working conditions, and greater insecurity, a “protected” elite in government, finance, tech, tenured academia, and the media failed even to notice this, no less consider its long-term political implications.
- Since the 1970s, the income of the top 1 percent of households has grown by 85 percent and the top 10 percent by 45 percent, but the bottom 60 percent lost ground. The income of the lowest 20 percent fell by 12.5 percent. Real hourly earnings among the working class fell 5 percent. This, along with the adverse trend of social indicators (morbidity and mortality, drug addiction, suicide) suggests that the welfare of the majority of the country declined in the age of globalization — a point that was unnoticed because of the abovementioned points: The elite class became ideologically ossified after the failure of the USSR, which they took as dispositive proof of the benevolence of free markets and their ability to lift all boats in their rising tides; moreover, the elite class mentally and geographically separated itself from the rest of the country, and thus literally did not see what was happening to it. The mainstream media, drawn from this class, barely noticed that only a minority had been the beneficiaries of global trade. It briefly noticed this issue during Pat Buchanan’s 1996 campaign, then forgot it again entirely.
- The media and professional politicians — the elite whom Peggy Noonan calls “protected” — thus failed to notice the discontent of the public. The elite domination of the media occurs so naturally that media news people, even when operating with complete integrity and goodwill, are able to convince themselves that they choose and interpret the news “objectively” and on the basis of professional news values. These constraints are so powerful, and built into the system in such a fundamental way, that they don’t see that they’re operating within them. Thus the media confused a public that had been lulled into apathy by cheap imported goods and cheap non-stop entertainment for a public that was, in the main, satisfied with politics as usual.
- As a result, the media both failed properly to report the sentiments of this public to policy makers and failed properly to report to this public with information it could use to guide its political decision-making. This public is now in full-scale revolt.
Do you agree with some, all, or none of the above? If so, why?
Published in Culture, Education, Entertainment, General, Politics
Now we’re cooking with gas! It seems to me that some people are just crusty about their neighbors’ raise.
Claire—I honestly had never heard the claim that butter was better than margarine until about ten or fifteen years ago. For me, at least, it’s very, very recent. And it took me a few years after that, even, to believe it.
In fact, when I look at our refrigerator and see the real butter, I still have this slight worry, deep down and only partially repressed, that I’m killing myself with the cholesterol.
This is one more reason why I’m skeptical of almost every dietary study that gets publicized. I’ve got one daughter who is picky and a bit obsessive in the way she eats. In middle school or high school, she’d started reading various dietary claims on the internet and fussing about what I cooked. She stopped drinking milk, got a calcium deficiency. Stopped eating beef, got an iron deficiency. Stopped eating fats, got too skinny.
We couldn’t convince her that these were untrustworthy fads leading to unhealthy results when you took them too far, and which might be contradicted by tomorrow’s study, anyway. Her doctor was finally able to convince her to stop, after these problems occurred, and even though she’s off in college, she has started eating a well-balanced meal again.
P.S: What is it about nutrition research that it seems to have so many studies that get contradicted within a few years? We don’t see as much of this in astronomy, physics, geology, etc.
What you say of Vatican vs. Manhattan can be said of any beautiful church vs. any marketplace.
You should also notice the rise of the armored panic room as elite status symbol.
From my personal experience 10 years ago my health care plan was something I didn’t pay for. Now every year more of my paycheck goes to pay more for my health insurance. The rise of health care costs at least in my situation are being paid by my fellow coworkers and I and not the company I work for.
At first glance, I thought you were mocking the campus sensitivity supervisors. But they put the kids in padded panic rooms.
Poach eggs, smother them in melted butter, & enjoy, possibly with a combination of spices. You’ll feel better.
Does your company disclose their portion of the costs of the group health plan? More than likely, they’re covering 60%+ of the total cost, and while employees are being asked to contribute a larger fraction over time, the majority of the overall cost is still being disproportionately carried by the employer.
It’s only been in about that time frame that quality studies were able to push their way through narrative. Gary Taubes deserves a lot of the credit for that.
Another narrative that was pushed without the data to back it up (by the same people that pushed the saturated fat phobia). Just as eating fat doesn’t make you fat, eating cholesterol doesn’t increase your cholesterol.
Most of what has passed for nutrition science have been poorly designed correlation studies rather than quality clinical trails, which are expensive and tough to perform on people. Add to that a lot of politics, and it doesn’t lead to sound results.
Perhaps in my heart of hearts, my thought would be that where people worship shouldn’t matter that much. Here’s a truck stop instead of St. Peter’s.
If the surroundings matter more than what’s going on inside the people then the surroundings just constitute a form of consumption.
But you cannot consume what you don’t first produce. Without Manhattan, you can have St. Peter’s, but only to sooth the wounds of your soul… in your tattered sackcloth clothes… and your teeth falling out… on your arthritic knees.
No, give me another chance, I’ve got a better one: There are prescriptions for people like you: They’re called French recipes.
His prediction seems to have been dead-on, doesn’t it.
I haven’t met enough plutocrats to be able to generalize as much as he does, but I’ve interviewed a few, and I didn’t notice one of the aspects he stresses — the lack of a sense of citizenship. The few I’ve met have been from developing countries, and every one really took pains to stress to me the importance they place on investing in their own countries, philanthropy in their own countries. This family, for example. I’m sure there’s a difference between the way they speak to journalists and the way they speak off-the-record, but the things they stress to journalists tell you something about the way they wish to be perceived, about what they think a decent person says and does.
I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re paying more as well. I’ll tell you this. I’m personally paying more every year for a higher deductible health care plan in addition to AFC tax I have to pay. For the average working joe stiff like myself it sure seems we’re getting a raw deal. Maybe the perception doesn’t meet reality but often perception is a stronger indicator of ones’ view on things.
My company is very open about the costs which it pays for benefits, which is an unseen (and therefore unappreciated) form of salary. My company is member-owned however, so those sorts of things are essentially public knowledge.
That openness drove me to the HDHP because I was sick of flushing my premiums down the drain.
You should talk to your HR people and find out what the cost split is. I’m sure you’ll find that a lot of your salary increases are being put there, and you don’t even know it.
Obamacare requires large employers to disclose the amount paid by an employer towards the employees healthcare. Internal Revenue Code Section 6056.
You know, the thing about Trump and his tastes in finery reminds me that Rob had made a comment about this early on in the race, when Trump was still just toying with the idea. Rob said, in joking about Trump’s branded luxury goods, that it’s not that he is high class, but rather that his tastes are so low (or words to that effect). I wish I could remember Rob’s exact phrasing.
But that’s been my impression, too. It surprises me, because that’s what I thought this nouveau riche idea was about, and yet Trump grew up in a millionaire family.
Mom has said about Elvis Prestley that she’s turned off by Graceland. That it has the sort of style a poor boy would think looked fancy if he made it rich, which is exactly what it is. And Mom is no upper class snob. She grew up in a poor farming family in Middle Tennessee, without electricity until she was in elementary school, and no running water until high school. But she has taste.
I guess that’s also true. It probably appears on your W-2 form. Code DD in Box 12.
To be honest till you mentioned it I never thought how much my employer paid into my health insurance. I’m sure this information is available.
Except for those who, for various reasons, viewed it as a disaster.
The Dems still do this, it’s called “superdelegates.”
This works well because the main constituencies of the Democrat Party are, in one way or another, clients of the Federal and State governments, and measures which decrease liberty and free enterprise while increasing the reach and scope of the state benefit both the politicians and the interest groups of their (dominant) wing of the UniParty. Their branding/marketing and actions are congruent.
The Republican wing of the UniParty has a problem. Its branding and marketing is “small government, in favor of small business and free enterprise” but, except for some small businesses which are de facto clients of the state, Republican politicians’ actions have for years been largely hostile to the interests of this portion of their constituent base while harmonizing well with the interests of the UniParty as a whole – while providing a nice life for the Republican members of the political class.
The only remaining action for disenfranchised voters is to refuse to vote for the UniParty candidates. Trump’s turnouts and rallies suggest that the UniParty is right to see him as a risk.
+1 on Claire’s #1, #5, and #11-15.
That’s what I thought too. However, Conrad Black, of friend of his, says Trump has been working on this for a while. This was a planned run:
Furthermore, people have been talking about his running for president since at least 1988 when he was on the Oprah show. And he was strong supporter of Perot.
And he was serious about running in 2000.
Apparently his political ambitions go back a long time.
Elvis had a Beverly Hillbilly quality to him. He would buy real expensive but gouache and tacky stuff yet he dined on fried peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.
Of course, the money a monarch spends on a palace is money spent on himself. And since Louis XIV regarded himself as the state, he regarded the tax revenues as “his” money. So, in Friedman’s example he was spending money on himself – he was concerned about quality, and he was only “sort of ” spending his own money, so he didn’t care too much about value.
Charles Murray addresses the increased and more conspicuous consumption of the wealthy in Coming Apart, diagnosing it as a breakdown in the civic virtue of seemliness.
This is an example that Murray uses, which I find hilarious. Something like: The new upper class despises mass-market American beer. They will only drink beer that is hand-crafted by Belgian elves.
I’m a holdout on this. I still like Miller High Life.
Democrats spend money on themselves, too, but it does not seem to improve the taste obvious in what’s popular.
True, but it also puts the Democrats in a bind when the electorate is demanding a change from the current approach. That is happening now and they cannot re-align their party as a result.
Tacky! That’s the word I was looking for.
100-120 years ago our plutocrats were the same way.
Charles Murray’s Coming Apart
I have not read all of the replies so far, but I agree with everything except no. 13. Wages may be stagnant or have declined, but it depends on how that is measured.
If one adds in the value of health benefits actual compensation has actually increased for the bottom 60%. This is no little thing to overlook. What’s more, wages don’t include transfer payments from the government, including food stamps, the earned income tax credit, and other payments given to individuals who work. There are other ways that the poorest have benefited in the last 40+ years that are not accounted for when looking at wages alone.
What’s more, the make up of households has changed completely. So if the data you’re using to come up with the declining wages is measured in household units rather than individuals, you are making a mistake. Related to this, the breakdown of the family structure has played a major role in the economic plight of the lower class, and that has nothing to do with NAFTA or the aloof elite.
All of which is to say, I think you are really overstating the plight of the lower class and how their situation has “worsened” in the last 40+ years. They have better health care, more and cheaper material goods, a more comfortable lifestyle, and are exactly the ones lapping up all the intellectually bereft, morally bankrupt, soul degrading, decadent dreck being served up by the media elites.
This has completely disappeared now, but his family was New York rich.
There was at that time a lot of friction between new (New York) money and old (Boston) money. Poor in a room full of old musty books was way classier than the New York wealthy. Ostentatious and gaudy were shunned. A truly classy person never bragged about what he or she had.
I look at the monstrosities the New York rich left in Newport, and I shudder. What a terrible burden those have become. Kennedy kind of wealth.
Old money built the great colleges and churches.
I worked on a beautiful book Preserving American Mansions and Estates that talks about the class wars among the wealthy. The conflicts ran deep.
The biggest change I noticed when I was volunteering in schools is how rude the kids were to the less fortunate kids. My Lord, if I had behaved that way, I’d have been turned back into dust by my parents! Over the last twenty years, the kids sorted out our present society on their playgrounds. The teachers, whose manners were worse than the kids’, never stopped it. It was much safer emotionally to be a poor kid in America before the eighties and nineties.