How the media boosted Donald Trump and screwed Bernie Sanders
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As this wildly unpredictable primary season heads toward the finish line, the two frontrunners are widely seen as their respective party nominees. Given that presidential elections are typically glorified as proof of our democracy at work, it seems appropriate to ask what kind of democracy has been revealed by this year’s primary season.
In his book “Democracy, Inc.,” the late, distinguished political scientist Sheldon Wolin has argued that we have a “managed democracy,” that elite “management” of elections is the key to perpetuating the “primal myth” that the people determine the rulers. As Wolin put it, this “antidemocracy” doesn’t attack the idea of government by the people, it encourages “civic demobilization” – conditioning the electorate to be aroused for a brief spell, controlling its attention span, and then encouraging distraction or apathy.
Obviously the mass media play a central role in the managed democracy. How, exactly, has this played out in this, the “year of the outsider,” when, according to a Quinnipiac University poll, almost two-thirds of voters in both political parties agreed with the statement that “The old way of doing things no longer works and we need radical change.”
Our news media, television in particular, work at two levels simultaneously. One level is cultural. This is where market-driven news accentuates its entertainment value, seeking to maximize audience or readership by grabbing attention with all the devices common to entertainment. News stories are brief, dramatic fragments; they accentuate eye-catching imagery, conflict, and personalities. They play on our emotions, but tell us almost nothing about why the world is the way it is.
The other level is ideological, or political. This is where the mass media are corporate institutions that reflect the consensual and competing views of elites who dominate our politics. This is where Democrats and Republicans “debate” political issues, where they tell us how to interpret the world. It is definitely not where more fundamentally critical, or outsider, views are taken seriously.
So, how do we account for the success of an “outsider” like Donald Trump, or the surprising level of success by the outsider Bernie Sanders?
Trump has been wildly successful because he is the latest effective practitioner of cultural politics; in fact, as a veteran of reality TV, he’s made for that medium’s entertainment pitch. As CBS CEO Leslie Moonves put it back in February, “it may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS…. [B]ring it on, Donald, go ahead, keep going.” Moonves’ critique of Trump as not “good for America” reflects the elite, ideological side of mass media; his “good for CBS” reflects the financially driven cultural side.
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