Ross says Trump won the presidency because he created the image of a great businessman. Helped by playing that role on TV. Reagan led the way in this regard, having developed his skills in movies. Seems the skills actually needed to perform the job of President are not the ones that attract voters. There’s a revelation.
Maybe the selection of candidates needs to be addressed? Maybe it should be required that certain skills be required? Beyond celebrity and deep pockets. For example, being able to read and follow a page of text? Compose entire sentences? Talk for 2 minutes on a single subject? Locate the USA on a map? Know whether they are standing in the rain, or not?
Maybe there are one or two other talents we could ask for in any prospect wanting to be a candidate?
29
Ross, you lost me at liberal TV execs were "fine with enabling the wild Trumpian takeover of the G.O.P., because after all Republicans deserved it and Hillary was sure to beat him in the end."
This whole col turns out to be an excuse for the GOP party embracing this guy and making him our president.
Or, it's an admission that GOP voters are mindless lemmings following whatever trend they see on the boob tube.
Say . . . maybe you're right.
20
TV Media hacked itself
First, Fox is clearly right wing propaganda.
Second, the right claims that the other channels are left wing propaganda.
Third, the mainstream media, in an effort to appease the right wing, call everything equal. Then by calling everything equal, they must blow up minor stories on Dems to match major stories on Republicans.
In the end, the media doesn’t care, just as long as the Dems and Reps pay for tv ads.
16
As far as I'm concerned, CNN elected Trump. I have a thousand complaints, but giving the tweets instant attention, interrupting whatever of any interest may have been on view, made me most irate. The shils CNN brought in for more Trump news and dollars, not even identifying their backgrounds, was disgusting. Now Stormy and Putin are bringing in the dollars, but once in a while there are some thoughtful and honest talking heads. So yes, I'm still watching CNN, a new member of the electoral college.
10
Sorry but 50 Ross Douthat columns on Trump in the Times since a week before the 2016 election qualifies you (and all your print media colleagues) to shoulder a good part of the blame for Trump saturation.
16
What an interesting article...
Totally agree that Trump was vaulted to the Presidency through his brilliant manipulation of the media. Look, call the guy anything you want, but his political and optical instincts are spot on. This is a guy that spent about 10% of what Hillary spent on advertising and still dominated news cycles. This is a guy that latches onto the stupidest, pettiest issues and creates YUGE buzz and, by extension, more support (think NFL kneeling).
He has taken on what has been implicit liberal bias in otherwise respected media outlets (NYT, CNN, etc.) and destroyed the perception they enjoyed for journalistic integrity. They are now seen, by a large part of the population, as liberal shills (~91% of stories on these networks are Trump-negative). Likewise, Fox News, long a more conservative-leaning outlet, is seen by a large part of the population as a shill for Trump.
Is Trump to blame for this? Is the brewing undercurrent of disgust with intractable government, left-wing political correctness and right-wing appetite for endless wars to blame? I think Trump recognized these undercurrents of discontent and used them to become President with the promise to drop a metaphorical hand grenade into the cesspool of the establishment (aka Swamp).
Bottom line: the media did not create Trump nor did they fool the American people. Trump used the media as a tool to play on the discontent in American society. This is how he became President.
13
Isn't it funny that Obama, who did exactly the same in 2008 and 2012 was praised over his "innovative smart use of the Internet".
5
So were you similarly concerned when Facebook and Twitter espoused liberal candidates and causes because Obama kind of wrote the book on using social media to inflate a campaign? Like it or not, social media can be used by and for anyone or anything. That we expose the uneducated and shallow to it allowing them to become stupider and more self-involved demonstrates how it is destroying our society. I'm not a big Trump fan-I voted for others, but I can assure you that Hillary won, our economy would've cratered and its just not doing that now.
1
All of the continued attempts to heap blame on liberals and Obama and deflect it from Ryan, McConnell, and their groveling minions will never cover over the primary role of the Republican leadership in accepting Trump as the face of their party. They knew he was an unstable, lying fraud from Day One. Trump is who he is and always has been, an ignorant, sleazy boor. Trump has dragged our nation into the mud, an environment where apparently he is very comfortable. However, the blame for his presence in our electoral process rests squarely on the shoulders of the Republican leadership who did nothing to protect our nation while willingly accepting the effects of Russian interference in the election.
Top Republicans stood next to Trump on the podium at the GOP convention with big smiles. They continue to stand by his side while he attempts to impede the rule of law by obstruction of justice. No self-respecting American can support Trump's presence in the Oval Office. No amount of hand-waving will absolve the Republican leadership for their complete lack of patriotism.
13
Trump won because of backlash against the identity politics of the Obama administration that alienated one of the largest voting demographics blue collar white males (ie Union Vote) and the sleaze of the Clintons racketeering, influence peddling and general disregard for the law. Targeted ads no matter who they were from did nothing compared to what the mainstream media did in terms of sowing and nurturing those seeds of discord.
2
During late 2015 and early 2016 CNN coverage of the Republican primary campaign was all Trump all the time... the other 16 candidates together didn't get as much air time as Trump. With his outrageous tweets, he was good TV (whether the commentators liked him or hated him... it was lively....), much better TV than any of the other Republican hopefuls. CNN and the other mainstream media now, explicably enough, want to blame social media for what they did. They hold firmly to the legal interpretation of the First Amendment according to which it, and not Love (pace Erich Segal), means never having to say you're sorry.
3
After disagreeing with most everything Douthat has written for the past few years, I feel obligated to sincerely praise him for the following: "Let’s get one thing straight: I am not a fan of Facebook. I’m confident that social media is a cancer on our private lives and a source of derangement in our politics. " Truer words have never been written.
8
ABSTRACT
1. Television elected Trump
2. Facebook and it's agent Cambridge Analytica were inconsequential..
3. Facebook et.al. criticism is a liberal plot against innocent conservatives.
Some (not all) of other factors mentioned today by a fellow NYT journalist.
Hillary’s flawed campaign. Bernie’s long campaign. The Electoral College. The media. Sexist voters. Racist voters. Economically anxious voters. Nonvoters. James Comey. Anthony Weiner. Vladimir Putin. Twitter. And Facebook.
This article grossly overstates one factor (thanks CNN?) and ignores a host of others.
6
Nah, Hillary Clinton was the most dishonest, hypocritical, corrupted, Politician to ever run for the Presidency. That's why Trump won.
5
Yes, and the NY Times was hardly immune. Day after day my wife and I tallied "Trump" and "Clinton" mentions in headlines. The NY Times did its part to ensure Trump controlled the news cycle and stayed in the race.
4
Russ is right about one big thing here. It was The Apprentice watchers who elected this abomination.
5
It was television, Facebook, and the NYT. Tell us something we don't know.
2
Ignores the role of the media in treating the Clinton private email server issue as if it were a scandal on the order of a child prostitution ring. But this just followed the pattern of previous elections where every meretricious GOP attack was given pervasive exposure. Does nobody remember how Al Gore was treated? How Kerry was swift-boated? The rot goes way back.
14
The Donald STILL hacks the press. I can’t fire up my tablet in the A.M. without half the articles about the OTUS doings!
2
Articles like this always make me grin. It's funny to see "elite" commentators write such pretty prose to say what is in essence a rant. Russ Douthat thinks himself rational and Donald Trump a demagogue, but I'll take Trump any day.
Stop Robert Mueller's hunting for witches and your ranting and raving in your elitist way and enjoy what Donald Trump has done so far. And just think -- almost 3 full years left to go!
1
This just in: Cons employ the newest tools of their times to keep their marks at a psychological disadvantage so they can win the long game -- News at 7.
Obama started it by farming for data with Zuckerberg's tacit approval on Facebook in 2012 and now all the indignant lefties are shocked, shocked I tell you, that Republicans did the same thing in 2016. It's comical to watch.
3
I'm curious. Google tells me the Trump and Clinton campaigns spent $81 million on Facebook information. Further tells me Obama used Facebook in 2012.
How about some information:
Was Facebook data used in 2008? By whom? How many dollars?
Same questions for 2012......and same questions for 2016.
Why are we given half of the truth? Isn't half of the truth the same as a lie?
2
An "opinion poem" from May 17, 2016 (almost two years ago)
BILLIONS IN FREE PUBLICITY!!!
I turned on CNN
And there he was again.
I switched to PBS
And saw more ceaseless press.
On MSNBC
Who’d you’d think I’d see?
Yes, even lefty Maddow
Cannot escape his shadow.
The front page of the Times
Has chronicled his climbs.
Its op-ed pages bray,
Quite often twice a day:
The golden-haired tycoon
Is just a vain buffoon
Obsessed with women’s looks.
He angers David Brooks.
His former ally Mitt
Insists that he’s a twit.
He gets to free-rein schmooze
On Sunday morning’s news.
A hothead heavy hitter,
He posts harangues on Twitter;
They frequently are sordid
But always get reported.
Perhaps he lacks finesse,
BUT HE’S A MASTER OF THE PRESS!
From HOW IT HAPPENED: The 2016 Presidential Campaign in Jest and Verse (Poet Pundit Press)
3
If you lived in NY prior to 2016 you already knew that Trump was a self-absorbed and insecure clown with little or no actual wealth or ability.
If you watched the campaign you saw that he was a pathological liar, allergic to facts, as well a a sexual predator.
So perhaps its not all those conservo-elite liberal-bashing apologist reasons that Douthat loves to flinging about. Perhaps it was just that Trump voters were too lazy to be bothered with the facts that were laid bare - or too selfish to care.
8
Trump lied.
He is a liar, not a "hacker."
He hasn't stopped lying. Additionally, bait and switch is a crime for everyone else. Jail time is appropriate for him.
2
With help from Jeff Zucker, Trump did hack the media, and Zucker admitted as much.
Nate Silver at 538 was the only unbiased statistical analyst who thought Trump had a chance, against all odds.
Even the NYT, all full of itself, didn't think Hillary could lose, and so helped her lose with the email false equivalency coverage, and it was only Nicholas Kristof, the lone NYT writer who admitted the NYT missed it.
There are many reasons for Trump, and the media is absolutely one reason.
Now, will Andrew Rosenthal let this comment thru?
4
I can see why Trump always got media attention: He was a wild and crazy guy saying mind-busting things. He was riveting, entertaining, lightning in a bottle. HRC and Bernie were boring. Especially HRC.
I'm a socialist, so I voted HRC, but I watched and listened to Candidate Trump. The guy was on a political suicide mission; he was standing on the ledge 100 stories up. I never dreamed that millions of people would like what he saying and how he's saying it. He was selling dangerous, stinky snake oil. What a clown! What a charlatan! What a con-man!
I understand why ratings-driven MSM followed him like a shadow. He could jump off the ledge any minute; you gotta be there for that, right? To be candid, if he runs again -- god forbid! -- I'll probably be watching him, not his tedious, colorless, stodgy rivals who are more effective than Ambien.
You know, I never knew about 'Pizzagate' until a wannabe hero showed up with a rifle at a pizza parlor somewhere, ready to free the children that Hillary's pedophile ring had kidnapped and covered by cable news. But people on Facebook with certain 'traits' certainly knew about it. They were being fed news about it daily. Online is where that story was born and lived.
But the constant coverage of the rallies was beyond the pale and really better not happen this time. People won't put up with it this time around and network execs be forewarned. We're sick of watching him incite violence and set Americans against each other.
And having FOX News as a state-sponsored propaganda arm with their own little dictator is just sweet, isn't it, Ross? Why bother with Intelligence Briefings when you can just watch FOX and Friends? Having people 'speak' to the president through the boob tube is really creepy. Having him tweet while he's watching Morning Joe (says he doesn't; right) to deny or deflect or tell another lie, is creepy.
And just why in heaven's name doesn't somebody take that phone away from him!? And get him off Twitter. He's broken the rules many times with his hate-filled words and images. He's never held accountable for anything. Why in god's name IS that? Stormy and Karen and Summer is the beginning of his accountability. They're gonna bring him down. And that I'll watch on TV.
7
Well said.
1
omg - are you really going there? If you keep thinking this way say goodbye to 2020 and even 2018. My goodness what nonsense.
Or you could lay the blame where it really belongs: willfully ignorant voters.
2
I would pay $1.50 a month to subscribe solely to Ross Douthat. So much of NYT writing is preaching to a choir whose members are leaving earlier every week. So much speculation and confidence with no accountability later. Douthat does this less, is wrong less, and apologizes when he's wrong.
2
Ok....there is no doubt that Trump's manipulation of the media got him into the ninth inning down by a run or two. To carry this baseball analogy a little further, teams pay relievers millions of dollars to pitch about 70 innings a year because what happens in the ninth is so critical.
With that said I hope I never have to read again how insignificant Facebook and Cambridge Analytica were in the big picture or that Russia's trolling and hacking had no influence on the election. 107,000 votes swung three states toward Trump essentially giving him the win. That's 107,000 votes out of a total of 120,000,000 total votes cast. Thus the 107,000 votes represented .00089% of the vote. So please tell me just one more time that professional trollers, professional data hackers, companies hired because of their expertise in profiling millions of voters, did not have the ability to sway .00089% of the population. Trump is sitting in the Oval Office because in the ninth inning James Comey came out of the bullpen to announce he was taking a peak at Anthony Weiner's computer. Then on election day the efforts of all the above mentioned led voters to choose their candidate based on what they saw in the media. And what they saw were ads tailored specifically for them as individuals.
Ask yourself this question? If you saw 50 ads tailored just for you showing just how fat and unhealthy people are after eating multiple Big Macs would this help you choose between McDonald's and Chic-fil-A?
1
The problem with editorials like this one is that they are founded on the false premise that the average American is too stupid to decide for him/herself when it comes to voting. Trump didn't win because he "manipulated" TV, internet, or anything else. He won because he connected with rural voters who have long felt ignored, and even oppressed, by the the coastal elites. Sure, Trump said outrageous things(by coastal elite standards, at least), but the heartland voters made the calculated decision to overlook his many flaws because they honestly felt like he understood them better than Hillary Clinton(another coastal elite) did.
The author of this editorial has unwittingly fallen into the trap of thinking that he, like his fellow elites, knows so much more than the average voter that the only way Trump could have won the election was through some devious political strategy that the electorate was too dumb to see through. This is a classic example of elites projecting their own way of thinking onto their opposition.
It is time that the so-called experts stop assuming that Hillary lost due to some kind of technicality, and instead open their minds to the MESSAGE that Donald Trump used to win the presidency, and WHY it resonated with so many Americans. Of course, most of the experts will never do this, because to do so would require them to challenge their own preconceptions and recognize that American voters may actually be smarter than they give them credit for.
5
Mr. Douthat, you left out one critical point in your analysis...if networks should not be covering the tweets, the outbursts, the irrational and the racist and Trump's campaign in general, then what should they be covering and what is the news media for if not to report and comment on their nature?
These repetitive, bellicose statements are news not just because of what they say and the outrageous nature of them, it also tells you something about our president and his inherently manipulative nature.
What no one anticipated is Trump actually winning based on not just this avalanche of false and misleading statements, but also his endlessly promoted, larger than life persona and whether you or I buy into it is completely irrelevant and besides the point, because enough did then and enough certainly do now.
That, Mr. Douthat, is the truly scary point.
Trump is our collective id driven into extreme overdrive.
He has pulled back the covers and given you a radically different perspective of the American Dream; a dream consumed by endless self indulgence and the self made, yet trust fund baby value judgements.
The question is, what do we do now?
2
So this is two articles. The one is about Trump and tv and it is old news. This analysis was part of the media's self-flagellation after the election. The second article is some weird thing about the way the liberals are going to police social media. And the second one--weird and paranoid and contemptuous as it is--is undone by the first one. The so-called "liberal" media gave Trump all that free advertising. They couldn't police themselves then---the ratings were too good. There is no reason to suppose that in the future money won't snooker the supposed gatekeepers--you know, the liberal "elites." (You'll notice that these days, the only elites are liberal. That's because the Kochs and their ilk are salt-of-the-earth proles like the rest of us.)
Ha! Entertaining to see the new spaghetti liberals are in. I’ve read about Cambridge Analytica methods for more and a year and tbh was surprised by how long liberals took to make a fuss about it and use it as yet another attacking tool against trump. To be sure the practice of using social media to profile customers is nothing new. Companies, orgs, political parties, etc have been doing this for years. Granted, Cambridge is among the most sophisticated and ingenious in its class.
Of course, it may have been because not only obama used same tactics with social media, but Clinton’s campaign Robby Mook was one who wouldn’t stop bragging about how superior their data operation was. He gloated about how they knew even when their voters would eat or bath.
No, of course they are envious to find out that trump (for all his lack of ground game, etc) outsmart them all with Cambridge Analytica. Double standards.
And no Mr Bruni many of us didn’t know trump via reality tv (I don’t even watch tv!) or for being some kind of stephord wife as clinton described us.
But keep doing it, blaming the losing on everything under the sun but the real and only reason: people are tired of government corruption and media dictating us.
1
There was not equal time given to the presidential candidates by the media. Especially the cable news. Trump was on TV 24/7 for a year and was given millions of dollars in free advertising. At the same time we barely heard anything about or from Hillary unless it was the media beating her up about the email story constantly while at the same time beefing up Trump's accusations. It was the "Crooked Hillary" drum that was beat continually.
2
This polarization of the electorate, by all the media, is bad not only for our governinment, it is ripping families apart too. The days when families could “agree to disagree” and then finish the pumpkin pie and watch the game are over.
It is ripping .the fabric of society apart.
1
Yep, Trump content can sell Pampers, beer, Toyotas and car insurance. Perhaps we should be thankful TV didn't provide us cartoon candidates. There is an off switch on every model of TV with which I'm familiar.
The role of television in Trump's campaign and election was obvious from the beginning. I knew several people, from acquaintances/friends to relatives to college students in my classes, who complained about how every time they turned on the TV news, it was Trump, Trump, Trump.
I dropped my satellite programming down to the lowest and cheapest level after the election, and, then, when my 2-year contract was up in fall 2017, I cancelled my TV completely.
I frequently read newspapers and journals throughout my life; I just do it a lot more now... every day... most of the day.
3
The entire Facebook narrative feeds into the left’s argument that the election of Trump was stolen, but this article only touches on the fact that the same type of improper intervention in favor of one party still happens but is under-reported. I am talking about the liberal media’s clear preference for progressive politicians and their policies. Last year’s study by Harvard proved this, but it still is one of the most under reported political stories out there. The real collusion story is our mainstream media (incl this newspaper) and the Democratic Party.
4
"[T]he current freakout over Facebook," as you describe it, has nothing to do with Trump -- other than that his campaign hired the same firm, Cambridge Analytics, that received millions of Facebook users' data. So, while it seems likely, as you say, that "old media" (network and cable TV, news shows, reality shpws and talk/scream shows of the CNN kind that made stars of cynical Trump propagandists like Kellyanne Conway, who spun fictions and refused to answer direct questions on the air) may have influenced more voters than social media (Russian hacking or no), it's also something of a straw man argument. The current outrage over Facebook has to do with selling users' data in violation of FB's user agreement (which nobody ever reads, anyway). It's not about Trump. Only Trump believes that everything is about him.
1
And Obama was praised as a genius in 2012 for his hip use of Facebook & other social media. Google those articles and you don't see Ross et al waxing poetic about the demise of society then, just the sheer exhilaration that Obama was elected.
The delusion that the election was "hacked" in any form, it just that.
3
I would like to add is that TV and print journalists have never covered a candidate, and now a president, like Trump. In the past, pretty much everything a candidate did would be covered, every comment, every speech. But we never had such a thinly educated candidate, now president, as we have now, or a person who is a malignant narcissist and needs constant adoration; cannot handle criticism without going on the attack. We did not have to deal with Twitter being used as "official" communication as we do now. New "rules" have to be written for these things. Literally, print and TV media are still trying to figure out what the right way is to cover a president like this because you can't just transfer the "old" rules. We have never had such chaos, a literal revolving door in an administration, a president who says whatever comes into his head and changes his mind the next day. The sheer quantity of "news" that comes out of this administration is mind-boggling. We have never had a president who lies like this president does. Media has even had to discuss how to refer to the "lies." There are philosophical discussions as to whether you can say it is a lie if you don't know the intent of the person speaking it. This president has created an entirely new territory to be covered, and it is somewhat akin to hopping into a stagecoach or a wagon to head to an assignment and expecting everything to work as it used to. Nothing is the same, and the journalists of today are the pioneers.
2
If Americans that oppose Trump wished to have a "Truth and Reconciliation" settlement on his election they would start first with some serious self-introspection. While much of what Douthat writes here is true it still suffers from the same proclivity to blame everyone and everything but ourselves. Whatever Trump was portrayed to be, an important motivation for those who voted for him was less to do with who we thought he was and much more to do with who his voters could no longer stand -- the liberals who in their self righteousness zeal have forsaken any sense of proportion in their constant, near hysterical protests against anyone or anything that comes in the way of their latest worldviews. The problem is far less fake news and much more who claims to speak for the truth. In a strange way Trump's election is a powerful vindication of the strength of American democratic spirit. Anyone that claims to know better than his neighbor better check herself -- we'll vote in the very thing you and I despise most. Just to prove that your place is not at the head of the table. Ignore this at your peril...
2
"Where did so many people originally get the idea that Trump was the right guy to fix our manifestly broken government? Not from Russian bots or targeted social media ad buys, but from a prime-time show that sold itself as real, and sold him as a business genius." Yup.
3
I do not support the Republican Party.
I am hard pressed, however, to think of anything the Democrats have done that has any substance.
Can I vote for someone else, please?
3
Among the 10 main reasons for the election results are (1) many people simply want to see a different party "in power" after 2 terms - just look at US history to validate that; (2) male hatred of female power; (3) right-wing-nut vilification of HRC for 20+ years such that many women including religious women dedicated to the idea of marriage hated her for staying with her husband during his indiscretions and (4) evangelicals thinking anybody the GOP would offer was God's chosen one. etc. I remain shocked and saddened every day that somebody like Trump, with no elective office experience, bankruptcies (thanks for pointing that out Douthat), having been a Birther (should have disqualified him by itself), immoral and venal, could become the US President. So sad. But if you look at the GOP candidates of the last several decades, many weren't really intellectually up for understanding what's really going on - Reagan swooned for voodoo economics that H.W. Bush was smart enough to call out; W. was over his head, and now Trump. How do such people become a candidate of a major party in the first place? All would have been fired by any self-respecting corporate board of directors within a year or so, IMHO.
4
In summer of 2016, I was sitting in the main piazza of Siena, Italy, listening in on a loud argument between a middle-aged American and his Italian friend over the merits of candidate Donald Trump. While grudgingly admitting to Trump's personal deficits, he declared that America needed a successful corporate tycoon like Trump to set things right. When the Italian pointed out Trump's serial bankruptcies, he insisted that was only evidence of Trump's cunning and superlative business acumen. His view of Donald Trump was a function of Trump's brand marketing.
In rejecting all forms of institutional authority, church, state, academia, middle aged baby boomers seem to have formed their political worldview from the banalities of T.V. Millions of Americans who imagine themselves to be deep thinkers are really just parroting the political economy of ABC's Shark Tank.
4
I give Ross his due here, he has nailed it. Voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania might have been nudged to the polling places by big money but those voters were there nonetheless, waiting to be pushed to action, by the forces and environment that Ross describes.
That said, it still leaves an "us vs them" narrative, one that pits the "susceptible to Trump" vs the "skeptical of Trump." The divisive nature of Trump appealed "by itself" to many people, the fact that he was willing to thumb his nose to others gave "permission" to his followers to do the same. Trump has made our divisions clear, more than he has reinforced what we share. Shame on Trump and shame on those who subscribe to this.
2
Mr. Douhat, you seem to have a huge blind spot that prevents you from accepting the ramifications of your own arguments. If the last election showed anything, it was that the impact of the MSM was minimal.If Facebook didn't matter because many Trump voters are not on it, how could it possibly matter what CNN or MSNBC did or didn't do, since Trump supporters don't watch it?
Who started the mentality of us vs. them? Is there not a strong correlation between Fox News viewership and the Republican party? Didn't Dick Cheney always have Fox news on? Weren't the MSM accused during the Bush administration of misreporting the Iraq war?
Blaming the left's response to Republicans increased partisanship and devotion to perception over reality is like blaming Neville Chamberlain for Hitler's extremism.
People were leveraging celebrity for political ends well before reality television came on the scene. The question is why anyone would think a real estate mogul - even a supposedly successful one would be a good choice to run the country. Which party put the idea into people's heads that gov't wasn't good at anything and needs to be run more like a business? Which party put as it's primary focus the need to lower taxes and gut regulations?
And if you choose to hold Democrats accountable because you recognize that conservatives and Republicans are too far gone to be reasoned with, the question becomes, why continue to identify as one of these people?
4
There is a reason I am highly selective about media. I am exposed to every form of sensationalism simply at work and through an ordinary day, so I protect myself at home.
3
One of my all time favorite movies is, George Clooney's "Good Night and Good luck."
That movie was a rehash of Edward R Murrow's warning to all, about man's weaknesses, and how, for good or bad, we interplay with new technologies.
In Murrow's 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association, in reference to television, he said,
"... if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost. This instrument can teach, it can illuminate - and yes, it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it towards those ends. Otherwise, it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck."
Need more be said?
10
Mainstream TV chooses what to cover and how to cover it on the basis of attracting eyeballs. If these eyeballs are not interested in hearing certain sorts of unpleasant truths (such as that a war is unwinnable), these truths will not be aired. If these eyeballs like to be frightened by stories of crime, these stories will be covered whether the crime rate is up or down.
Networks that did not cover Trump's stunts would lose viewers, so it was their business model and the desire of investors for profits and dividends, and not the arbitrary decisions of executives, that allowed Trump to hack them. If businesses are not to follow the business model dictated by free enterprise because it damages democracy, who besides the people acting through their government has the right to demand this? Those who believe in free enterprise, small government, and democracy must deal with the development that the first two endanger the third.
Douthat seems to be arguing that the liberals are fine when social media platforms are used for liberal causes, but have a problem when conservatives leverage the same platforms effectively. However, the outrage against Cambridge Analytica and Russian bots has to do with (a) data being illegally obtained, and (b) the platforms being used not for communication but for propaganda to influence unsuspecting Facebook users. No one is complaining about conservatives using the social media platforms to disseminate their world view, which they do effectively today.
8
"...the business model of our news channels both assumes and heightens polarization."
Yes, Ross. In a word, capitalism. Isn't this just the free market at work? Notice the "magic" of the free market in all its efficiency, heightening and encouraging the screaming matches and the con-men to ever greater episodes of controversy and conflict?
The news used to be presented as a public service by the three major networks, so no serious profit motive drove coverage of the issues of the day. Responsible journalists presented the news in a mostly even-handed fashion. But once Reagan got rid of the Equal Time rules (the Fairness Doctrine) in the 1980's, it was off to the races. New Cable T.V. channels and old radio programs became free to be as openly partisan as they chose, the only prerequisite for gaining air-time was "will it sell?"
So, thank capitalism and the pursuit of prurient interests trying to squeeze the last dime out of our democracy for what happened in 2016.
8
The Equal-Time Rule and the Fairness Doctrine are two different things: the latter is gone, but the former is still with us.
1
Facebook promotes itself as a medium of liberal free exchange. Ironically, it is the anti-liberalist agenda that has most aggressively used the service. Facebook, however, is still culpable and Zuckerberg ultimately responsible for this morass. Data harvesting was always the bulwark of the organisation, that’s why the service is free. One sells one’s digital soul in a contract bedevilled by small print, obfuscation, and bland omission. Therefore, it was never a medium of liberal free exchange. It was a Trojan horse emblematic of the old (paraphrased) maxim of beware of geeks bearing gifts.
It seems the way forward for social media, other than draconian and counter productive regulation, is to take free subscription away, replacing it with a paid membership that cancels the need for advertising revenue. The content can be adroitly edited by an expert editorial panel and vetted in much the same way as the NYT comments section. The more the membership numbers, the lower the subscription fee. This would not remove trolling or falsehoods, but it would make them more easily identifiable.
I’m all for the democratisation of information, but it can only be utterable truths that prosper. There is no need to edit opinion, all are welcome, but civilised discourse needs to cultivated in a vulnerable world where technology is the realm of untrustworthy elites.
3
OK, so, bottom line, Hillary is STILL correct and batting one thousand when she continues to point out, as she did in India last week, all of the reasons she lost an election she should have won.
And the $2-3 billion in FREE media the old fashioned networks gave Trump, that Hillary had to pay for, actually was leveraged by Trump to claim he ran a smarter campaign because he spent less on media than the presumed winner.
I'd like to see the media explain NOW why they have expanded their free air time to more Republicans, such as Roy Moore and Rick Saccone, covering THEIR rallies free of charge for air time and on an ENDLESS seemingly 24/7 loop.
The answer given by Maggie Haberman of this newspaper is the presence of the president on the theory that ANYTHING the president does is newsworthy and must be covered by journalists.
Let's accept the premise. Why does that coverage have to be free if it involves partisan politics and not government business, and why doesn't the other side get EQUAL free air time?
14
An election "she should have won". There is a problem with this statement: why should she "have won"?
2
I would agree that the television media , along with talk radio played the largest part in Trump's election. The media helped Trump to dispose of his Republican primary rivals by giving him coverage all out of proportion to his candidacy because of his notoriety and their perception that his political inexperience would make him easy meat for the Clinton machine. As it has happened so often recently, being out of touch with too much of America caused the huge under estimation of Trump's popularity with disaffected voters. Sometimes the old adage is true, there is no bad publicity.
9
So much strife created by mainstream Democrats who are sore losers; they've been exposed as playing dirty in their primaries, and actually wanting Trump to be nominated so they could beat him. Maybe that's why their friends at CNN and MSNBC kept showing the empty Trump podium while a populist candidate was creating actual grassroots excitement. Cable news plays for the ratings, and I guess the Times does what Washington wants. Otherwise why are the most important stories still sidelined while we obsess over Trump?
5
Perhaps this sounded better in the original Russian. But no, this comment is based on misinformation--they didn't play dirty in the primaries. Bernie lost fair and square. (In 2015 I gave him money and wrote to him asking him to run. When he started running, I saw that he was not prepared to be President and would have been slaughtered in the general election. He lost me and I wasn't an easy person for him to lose.)
And I wouldn't believe all that you read in the DNC hack--the Russians changed the dates on the emails to anger the Bernie bros. It seems to have worked.
Oh really? And the NYT support for a prescribed candidate and it’s total inability to decipher an AUTHENTIC candidate who would have whooped Trump by 10% needs to own up to it’s part in this national train wreck. Thanks for nothing!!
10
You tell 'em. Maybe while they are at it they should throw out the algorithm that gave Clinton a 90+% chance of winning up until midnight election night. What a joke.
8
Totally agree. Every last NYT prediction wrong. Instead of itself working to give more free press time to DJT (including the ridiculous and unreadable Maureen Dowd's aid and succor to DJT), the NYT could have shown a bit more judgment in how it covered serious Democratic candidates versus DJT. Or perhaps done some accurate reporting from red states? Blaming one type of media while giving the NYT a free ride strikes me as completely hypocritical and self-serving. Lay some blame also on the NYT. And how about some improvement before midterms????
2
"Stewards of the liberal consensus." What exactly does Douthat mean by this term? For many years, particularly during the post-war period, our two-party system nominated candidates near the center of the political spectrum. Truman, Dewey, Eisenhower, Stevenson, Kennedy, Nixon, and Humphrey all were definable as right or left of center, but those further from the center, like Taft and Henry Wallace, remained outside the mainstream. One could have said at the time, I suppose, that these centrist candidates represented the liberal consensus. Have today's Democratic candidates -- Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton -- strayed anywhere near as far from that old centrist consensus than the Republicans' veer to the right since Reagan? When more than 50% of a party's self-identified adherents do not believe in global warming or evolution or that Obama was born in this country, it's no wonder the media still gravitates around the same old consensus.
7
Yes, today's Democratic candidates - including B. Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, and H. Clinton - have strayed so far from the Democrats of 1950 and 1960 they are unrecognizable.
Democrats have lost the bottom income quintile, much of the second quintile, and enough of the third quintile to lose elections. They have lost the working class - defined as people who work with their brains and hands. They have lost so many union members that national level union officers can't deliver anything.
Democrats have lost a substantial portion of the Black vote - you might recall Obama received fewer Black votes in 2012 than 2008.
In short, Democrats can count on much of the top quintile and much of the fourth quintile, and can count on welfare recipients and legal immigrants.
Neither Harry Truman nor Adlai Stevenson nor Jack Kennedy would recognize today's Democrat 'leaders'.
3
I once read a piece on data analytics that showed how online newspaper subscriptions tracked the habits of readers, noting which stories were read, how long each individual spent on each page, and which advertisements were viewed, amongst other tenets of readership. The objective, clearly, is to target the individual with specific stories and advertisements to increase exposure and consumer satisfaction of the subscriber, bolstering profits of the publication. However, can this information be misused. The answer is an unequivocal “yes.”
What gives any corporate entity the right to spy on its clients or customers for any reason? The success of a business was once related to its reputation and not to dirty tricks that it employs to subliminally inveigle its client list with surreptitiously gleaned information that replaces reputation for subtle coercion. All may be fair in love and war, but the view that profit is a spoil of war plundered from a unilaterally waged campaign against unwitting adversaries pits a rapacious corporate culture against ordinary citizenry unaware that it is being besieged.
Business models of this type are loathsome. Allow these models to steer democratic elections and we have a social atrocity on our hands. This can be fixed be rediscovering the old, long lost, tradition of reputation, not only of the corporation, but of the individuals who steer them, and, vitally, those that use these services that should be without peril.
5
But I thought it was: The Russians, Fake News, the Alt Right, Women being told by their husbands for whom to vote, Wikileaks, James Comey, Misogyny, etc., etc.
6
Oh dear, Tom. It was all those things (except for women and their husbands). Don't forget racism and resentment. And why did Trump win? Because he was a solid candidate? He had good policy ideas? Build a wall? Drain a swamp? Bring back coal, when it was fracking that killed coal? How is this Presidency working for you? A tax cut that will impoverish your kids? You like that? Perhaps you do....
“conservatives and populists will not be allowed to use the same tools as Democrats and liberals again, or at least not use them effectively.”
But views and beliefs cannot be suppressed forever in the U.S. Like water, they will always find the cracks. Better to know what people are thinking and be able to debate than get a nasty surprise again.
2
Ross, you point about TV and the role it played in our national disaster is obviously true, and was obvious at the time. And, ironically, the mainstream media has followed the Trump playback by refusing to admit its collusion, and by blaming everything else but themselves.
That said, the conspiracy theories about liberal motives are off-base. The internet is spreading false information more powerfully than truth and contributing to a growing epistemic crisis. It wasn't supposed to be this way: more information is supposed to be a good thing. But people continually tells us that, with so much competing information out there, they don't know whom or what to believe. They're clearly right about that: they don't know. Liberals are merely casting about for solutions.
2
All anyone had to do to find out Trump was not a super businessman was to check him out on Wikipedia! Its sad to think that the people who may have put Trump over the top believed in his phony reality show and didn't bother checking any relatively non-fake media source to find out more.
3
The other part of the story is the role an incredibly biased media played in ensuring a candidate widely (and correctly) perceived as venal and duplicitous and inevitable received the nomination for the Democrats.
3
Hillary divulged the entire tax history of her own accumulation of wealth. What did you find in it that she should be ashamed of?
9
Those of us who are Harry Truman fans recognize the truth of what he said: "No man can get rich in politics unless he's a crook".
Works for women as well.
3
Yeah, right. The media never reported any of the nonsensical myths about HRC, baseless right wing conspiracy theories or gave any coverage to Benghazi, Comey's investigation or her emails. If the NYT and other "incredibly biased media" had spent half as much time reporting or digging into the DJT campaign's connections to Russia, illegal funding via foreign sources or collusion with foreign agents to steer the elections as they did on HRC, perhaps a free and fair election resulting in the winner of the popular vote being elected would have been the result.
1
My wife went from Obama to Trump. After the whistle blower from Cambridge Analytica described their tactics and hearing the sting quotes. I thought, well I watched them play out with my spouse in real time in 2016. Internet fake news stories tailored to her prejudices. Beyond convincing her that Hillary wasn't actually involved in satanic rituals, I was not able to correct any of the other fake news. It was so well targeted to her emotional side that reason just could not break through.
8
Obama himself never realized that he was led on to be sucker bait for the nihilist vote in 2008.
Excellent article, Mr. Douthat. Very interesting comments too. And this conversation will go on and on, analyzing all the minute details of how
and why things happen. Is anyone thinking about how to eliminate this?
How about a US Presidential Campaign that is only allowed to last 6 weeks?
Perhaps limiting the amount of money that can be spent on a Campaign?
And another simple solution on a different useless conversation: outlaw
all military assault weapons, and their ammunition. Does anyone really
think that arming teachers, improving mental health facilities, improving
background checks, etc, etc is the best approach? When did Americans
slip into this talk-about-it-to-death merry-go-round? Is there a Republican
or Democrat out who can see past this nit-piking and do something bold?
4
US public policy on guns is schizoid muddle of cognitive dissonance. We don't need any ambiguity about "rights" to shoot other people. They don't exist.
1
After reading through this, I see nothing here to suggest any impropriety. It just appears to me that Trump ran a brilliant campaign, utilizing all of the modern tools to reach the voters.
4
To what end?
3
Perhaps you spend too much time on Facebook, Twitter and watching Fox News? In what universe is a "brilliant" campaign run by those in the pay of foreign countries? By candidates who fail to release their tax returns? Who lie to the public at least 5 times daily? I wouldn't call that brilliant. I'd call it shameful.
1
Good column, Ross. The NYT did its share of hypercoverage of Trump during the long campaign, at the expense of real news stories. They were told this again and again and again by loyal readers and commenters--I know, because I was one of them--that they were being played & should stop covering his every sneeze and start covering serious issues. I was baffled and then disgusted at their poor editorial judgment.
That said, I agree that putting him on tv as a "real mogul" gave him a boost into the stratosphere that he otherwise would not have had. The truth will set us free, but it's harder and harder to find it, and moreso, harder to know when you have.
5
Trump consoles Everyman that they could be president too.
2
Everyman...........That was Harry Truman...........and he did become president, and did a wonderful job.
1
It certainly was Cambridge Analytca crafting the messages, they claim in the UK channel 4 video to have fed him key phrases for targeted populations, the ceo and COO of Cambridge Analytca are recorded on video saying they devised every campaign message of the Trump campaign, proudly taking credit for devising the concept of 'crooked Hillary'. This was more than an Obama Era organization of voters on social media, this was using psyops military weapons on civilians with stolen data. This was theft, this was war, this was criminal.
5
You cannot steal something from someone when they freely give you all their information. Facebook does not charge its 'members'; they are not customers.
They are the product.
1
Has anyone cited Neal Gabler's prescient Life: The Movie: How Entertainment Conquered Reality?
2
My take away from this is that liberals need to disappear Sean Hannity from television.
1
Sorry, Ross. Stolen data that allowed micro targeting to millions of people in specific counties in swing states. And this strategy no doubt fed the feverish anti-Hillary "Bernie Bros" on the left too. Wake up.
7
"If the trauma of Trump’s victory turns social-media gatekeepers into more aggressive and self-conscious stewards of the liberal consensus, the current freakout will have more than served its political purpose."
Great idea! We don't need conspiracy theories and lies on line. Let them stay at the National Enquirer and Fox news where they belong.
3
I would also say, don't get caught-up in a chicken-or-egg argument with respect to whether divisions existed in the U.S. electorate before the Russian hack. Both are true. There were divisions exploited by a systematic information warfare campaign by the Russians, aided by U.S. insiders; probably Republican operatives.
2
This is why we don't have television and have never looked at a "social medium". We stick with newspapers, WSJ and NYT for balance.
4
Wow!Amazing, both groups Republicans and Democrats,and Independents(I'm one), can all agree.This guy is a disaster.Let's join hands and sing Kumbaya, and let's get him out of the presidency!
Or perhaps we need to live with the appalling DJT lest we ever let anyone like him (or Hillary, for that matter) anywhere close to the Oval Office.
1
What lies beneath of all of these arguments the NYT Opinion Kingdom proffers by the legion is that somehow Trump used underhanded means to win the White House.
What the Kingdom’s munchkins in all their diatribes, filled with all their insufferable, self-serving democratic principles, have failed to point out is that the Sovietized narrative being foisted on the American people day-in, day-out was that somehow Hillary was a given, a sure thing, the best candidate the DNC Politburo could find, while intentionally with malice ignoring the nasty business coming from Obama’s White House, e.g., Comey working with Lynch and the DNC on “the matter”, Rice using the NSA as a means to manipulate FISA Court with the FBI, not to mention that Obama told “60 Minutes” in March 2016--long before the investigation was concluded--that the FBI-Hillary investigation would produce nothing: “There’s no there there,” he told the citizens.
So with all the mass-media propaganda--to include SNL and late-night TV--being broadcasted out of New York City’s mass-media central going her way and every international newspaper trashing Trump, too, there must be an explanation as why he won--Trump cheated, used unsavory means to win the White House.
Yeah, that explains it. Try the mirror, Opinion Kingdom, probably has the answers.
6
Thank you for this.
1
All the dots are connecting on Trump-Russia. Facebook, Cambridge Analytic, and next the touch points where both fed (provided the insider data and push-technology) the Russian information warfare effort.
1
The American voters allowed themselves to be deluded by the social media and cable news outlets. Shame on the American people! The news media, electronic and print, were not hijacked they were willing participants in the election of President Trump. Particularly cable outlets some more so than others. Some certainly are more complicit in failing to serve as an independent source of the truth versus the pap put force by the campaigns. Facebook, twitter and the other "social media" platforms are not news outlets and therefore I o not look to them as a reliable source of information.
1
People like Mr. Douthat are part of the problem, not the solution.
3
You've spent years telling yourselves how great, and wonderful, and powerful, and smart, and strong a nation you are when all you really were was a confederacy of dunces.
Turn off the TV!
5
Ross, just remove Fox from the media mix. Will you be able to compose the very same column then?
4
Raj writes, "just remove Fox from the media mix".
But then we would have only liberal cable channels. MSNBC is far left wing, CNN is left wing, and Fox is right wing.
1
Yes, agree with the argument about TV. But let’s not forget that America had people dumb enough to belive HC was running a child sex ring out of a pizzeria so much so that one person gathered up their gun and went down to investigate. Find that level of stupid anywhere else in the world and you would be very hard pressed.
9
In my humble view as a retired Canadian journalist, part of the problem must stem from inadequacies in the American education system. Are young Americans schooled in what defines a Democracy - like the one they now enjoy but will damn well lose if current trends continue? Democracy means government by the people - 'all people' not just the rich (oligarchs), certainly not the big multi-national corporations whose shareholders take umbrage at any legislation that interferes with their bottom line. Democracy also means government respect for the courts and adherence by everyone to a system of laws that are falling behind as companies like Facebook race ahead with radical new electoral marketing platforms that could turn Democracy on its head - not to mention unlawfully invade our privacy.
10
No other single legislative act of propaganda has had a greater deleterious effect on the US than the 1953 legislation by Congress that inserted the words "under God" into the national loyalty oath recited daily by US schoolchildren.
Science would not even be possible if nature had a whimsical human personality.
2
This is just advance damage control by a republican for republicans.
6
Mr. Douthat, you really need to re-think that role as apologist for the GOP.
7
This article is one of the most spot-on analyses of what went wrong to date.
I railed throughout the campaign about the malign influence of the media. It was everywhere in every form. From choosing to give him the world's largest platform and bullhorn (we'll never know the hard numbers for how much free advertising he was given by a besotted media lovesick over the ledes he provided) to the blind refusal to track down hard information about his crimes, to the bewildering decision to whip her emails for the billionth time (I exaggerate only slightly as a quick Google search reveals) while refusing to investigate what was in the 169 pending federal investigations into him, to the supine response to his grotesque abuse of them...our media enabled him at every turn.
While I welcome the renewed interest in investigative journalism --the life of our democracy now literally depends on it--it's a day late and a dollar short. We're in crisis because the media ushered this man into every crack and crevice of our lives. He loomed so large it made his election inevitable.
Going forward, can we learn this simple lesson? The media does not have to attend every rally for hate (where it was belittled, mocked, and railed at without response). It does not have to repeat every insane thing a loon says. It does not have to hand a criminal a bullhorn and give him ten times the coverage of his opponents. Had this petty, vicious, thug been ignored he would not now be in the White House.
56
Yes! Well said. I too think Ross is spot on, though I am on the “other team.” But as some commentators wrote, how could people who watched The Apprentice come away with a positive impression of Trump? I fear Reality TV has, in general, caused people to abandon critical/analytical thinking; to believe what they are told to believe. And that celebrity/$$$ is the true measure of a persons stature - not integrity, intelligence, compassion or accomplishment. We have much work ahead to rebalance our society.
6
Mr. Duothat,
Nice analysis. Another made-for-TV factor: the deity-like quality Trump's voice took on when the TV news programs allowed him to call into their shows. Trump used this to his great advantage. In fact, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough hung up on him once in late fall 2015 and Trump promptly called back and reined in his behavior. Joe Scarborough cites this as an example of him controlling Trump, but in reality TRump manipulated Scarborough and others to give him the precious TV air time, which was like oxygen at that point.
I agree that subsequent generations will likely not be as TV controlled. However, we might not have a republic left when this guy finishes. He is so adept at dividing people and bringing out the worst, we might just have torn ourselves apart and not be a viable country any longer.
Remember that Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia took dormant ethnic feelings and transformed that country into a genocidal hunting ground.
5
This article should be the last chapter in Anderson's book, Fantasyland, how Americans have been collectively deluding ourselves for a long time. Trump is merely the latest manifestation of our national foolishness.
2
I wonder if any newspapers overplayed Comey's letter and Clinton's emails, and underplayed Russian interference before the election….
8
Trump may have finally met someone who is better at media manipulation than he is. Stormy Daniels has got him completely tongue tied, and hiding behind a bunch of expensive lawyers. Most Americans do feel that everyone is entitled to a voice and an opinion and therefore leaning on someone to shut up because you can throw your weight around seems unfair. It’s not like this non-disclourse agreement, which is now unequivocally known to exist, has anything to do with intellectual property or national security. It’s about his philandering. What can he possibly say? All Trump can do now is hope and pray that when her 60 Minutes interview airs on Sunday, is that Ms. Daniels doesn’t talk publicly about his little…...
4
"the political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism"
Ross Douthat is standing in the middle of a blazing forest fire whining about a sandwich he didn't particularly enjoy several years ago.
It's a sickness.
11
So Mr. Douthat thinks "The Apprentice" qualifies as "fake news." Apparently he doesn't read his own paper.
1
Let's start by saying it is much easier to understand the news, be it TV, the Internet or papers like the Times, if we think of it as non fiction entertainment. During the run up to Donald Trump's election, the Times, to name just one source, followed every Trump outrage with headlines, opinions, and all manner of thoughtful follow ups... There were days when it seemed that the front page was a sort of weird Donald Trump wall paper. The finances were clear. Donald Trump was a gold mine. Somewhere along the line the Times pulled back from slavishly printing every daily tweet, but the overall effect can not be ignored. I do not mean to single out the times. The Post, CNN, MSNBC, Politico, Fox,.. Printing Donald Trump has been a license to print money and that gets us to the central point. Paid media is in the business of making money and even the loftiest of these answers, in some measure, to their accountants. On this basis, I would say that these accountants, more than anyone else, got Donald Trump elected.
1
How the heck did we get to the point that Americans are so profoundly lacking in discernment and judgement. I used to watch The Apprentice occasionally- not because I admired Trump or thought he was some sort of business genius. I watched because I was fascinated by someone with such a bizarre personality - equivalent to watching the Pee Wee Herman Show. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he could get within a million miles of the presidency. I remember one episode in which he pressured the gathered contestants into stating they would vote for him if he ran for president. Their discomfort was obvious knowing that saying 'no way in a million years' would elicit his vengeance even though that's what most seemed to be thinking.
Trump never for a moment appeared to me to be anything other than a stuffed suit. I sensed he was also lech by the way a beautiful young woman in tight clothing always sat behind a podium in the lobby whose only function seemed to be to say "Mr. Trump will see you now." Because he never built anything that was not luxury and stamped his stupid name on everything, it was obvious he cared only about himself and his rich pals.
Somebody please explain to me how oh how anyone could watch The Apprentice and come away with a positive impression of Trump. It is unfathomable to me.
42
Of course, tRump was premium fuel for the 24/7 cable news machine, which burns through stories like a Hummer eats gas. But make no mistake, this election was turned by social media, which shifted swing voters, independents and Bernie supporters to tRump.
And please, Douthat, stop with the false equivalency of MSNBC with Fox news. The latter, as a former Fox commentator admitted yesterday, is nothing but a dishonest propaganda machine.
4
I will never forget being in a long line waiting to get into a rally for Bernie Sanders at the Key Arena in Seattle which was bursting with enthusiastic supporters. Later in the day I saw no coverage of this in the news, "crickets" as they say. Meanwhile the pundits were showing an empty podium awaiting Trump, somewhere and he didn't show up! The pundits talked about Trump all that night, and all the election seasons his antics or even his missing antics, it was all they covered. The US mainstream media is also culpable. They sold their souls when they sold news that was largely Trump 24 hours a day.
3
For all anyone knows, way back before the internet and targeted media, Abraham Lincoln could have deliberately chosen certain kinds of tree stumps to make his speeches from simply because the aromatic qualities of that wood smelled better to a lot of people which they then subconsciously associated with him and his speech. Hacking probably goes all the way back to the original sin from the Garden of Eden. Why else would Apple choose an apple for its logo that had a bite out of it? I used to think it was so they wouldn't be sued by the Beatles, but now I'm not so sure.
11
Apple chose an apple because the first logo showed Newton sitting under a tree, with an apple overhead, which, legend has it, fell on his lap and he had an AHA! and thought of gravity. Later Steve Jobs hired Rob Janoff to do an icon of just the apple. Janoff did a simplified shape of an apple, with a little leaf twig. And then he realized it sort of looked like it could also be a cherry. So he added the "bite" to it and there you are!
3
I concur with the premise here. The media is "complicit" (have we heard that term before?) in Mr. Trump's election.
The media was suckered, intentionally or not (I tend to think not), into giving Donald Trump endless coverage because he was a novelty and "infotainment." May be it was about ratings, maybe not.
But the bottom line is, shame on the media, mainstream and otherwise, for glorifying Mr. Trump and, I am sorry, lending credibility to him by the sheer magnitude of its coverage.
Stick to news, not entertainment.
2
Seems insightful to illustrate the oblivious complicity of the ratings-driven 24-hour news cycle in the rise of Trump. But it's wishfully disingenuous to equate this with "liberalism," to imply that pushing back against Russian trolls and white supremacists on social media is equal to attacking conservatives, or to avoid mention of Fox News, our ailing country's first purely partisan propaganda machine. Fox was only too happy to start twisting facts for Trump as soon as the GOP nominated him. As a self-identified progressive I honestly can't identify with the sins that Douthat wants to pin on liberals.
3
Darn good article. For all of us paying attention, we realized we were seeing an attack on our country by a madman playing a madman on a 24/7 television news cycle. For example, CNN was all trump; all the time. I still cant watch CNN for that reason alone. Ross, you're correct when you write that this is exactly what brought the current calamity to life and, in many ways, continues to feed the monster.
1
It wasn't TV as such that made him president (lower case on purpose.) It was the crazed coverage of him by the press, afraid that if they did not broadcast his every small-finger pointing, snarling lies, they would lose viewers. He manipulated the press and they let him get away with it. Reporters never called him out, afraid that he would snarl and walk away. Too bad he didn't walk away - far away, far, far away - never to be heard from again.
3
How did Democrats realize that Trump's entire image was "fake news," when Republicans didn't? We are constantly told by right-wing pundits like Douthat that the Republican rank-and-file is smarter than liberals think. Douthat's correct; Republicans knew exactly what they were doing in electing Trump. However, it destroys Douthat's entire thesis. Republicans voted for Trump because of his hatred and bigotry, not despite it. Republicans understood that Trump was corrupt and a danger to American democracy, but simply didn't care. In railing against the liberal media and blaming it for Trump's victory, Douthat conveniently ignores the role of Vladimir Putin, Fox News, and Trump's Republican enablers, including over 170 House Republicans, and 25 Republican Senators who endorsed him. Did the media giving Trump heavy coverage to boost ratings assist him? Certainly, but he still would have lost. Trump was always going to lose the popular vote no matter how much free media coverage he got, so Putin and Cambridge Analytica attacked America, using hacking and disinformation, known as "Active Measures" in KGB/FSB jargon. The massive hacking of American social media was to identify and then target a small group of voters. Disinformation was then used to suppress a very small amount of the black vote while activating a very small amount of the white vote in a few swing states. It worked and it's why Trump won an undemocratic Electoral College victory while heavily losing the popular vote.
8
A better analysis than any I've seen in the MSM, especially GOP apologists like Douthat here. Thank you.
3
I'm sorry but there was nothing brilliant about Trump's approach. A large segment of America was, unfortunately, just waiting for a troll to appear--and when it did, they embraced it. The media was faced with the dilemma of how to report on a troll running for the highest office in the country. Really, there was no right way to handle it. No magic bullet despite all the 20-20 hindsight from pundits like Mr. Douthat.
The solution is coming, but it's going to be even uglier and more tawdry. The solution to Trump is to troll him back at the highest level.
I hate to say it, but Stormy Daniel's has the right strategy. She's taken a page from Trump's playbook, lit that page on fire, and with any luck she's going to burn him to the ground with it.
In a sane world, I'd say we should lament this sort of chaos. But under the circumstances, I'm going to settle down in front of the fire when it comes, and break out the marshmallows.
3
Yeah, Ross... the "Facebook freakout" is all about the fact that it was Trump and not "liberals" that allegedly benefited by the underhanded use of Facebook data and its use to target potential voters with a slurry of propaganda.
It has nothing to do with the, um, underhanded use of the data and the propaganda, period.
Perhaps a line about how and why conservatives are so prone to buy into conspiracy theories would have been in order here...
3
must everything you write, insightful and engaging though your prose often is, contain explicit digs against the "liberal" establishment? you owe most of the freedoms you obviously cherish to a government founded on those liberal Enlightenment era principles. I would like to see such talented and well-read editorialist spend a little more time analysing current events with his, obviously, superior education and intellect, rather than trashing the enduring liberal principles that encourage, rather than suppress, his eloquence.
3
It's worth examining how Trump became president only to the extent that it helps us a) get rid of him and b) prevent another disaster like him from ever being president.
We will not get rid of television nor Facebook nor any social media. They are ingrained in our society. We can only protect ourselves and our country by recognizing hype when we see it and taking the time to examine whatever "news" is presented, no matter where it is presented.
It's time now to focus on 2018 and weakening or removing the Republican hold on Congress. Then perhaps we can get back to the business of government of the people, for the people, and by the people.
2
I would have liked you to say that The Times also was hacked by candidate Trump and continues to give him the attention he craves. I noticed during the campaign that Trump typically was featured in 6 or more of the ten most read articles compared with 1 or 2 about Hillary. This probably reflects readers' fascination with the clearly unqualified candidate, but reporting by The Times and other news outlets that you list shifted attention to Trump away from Hillary's conventional campaign message.
3
The system in place since the 1980s has the following model CEO/politician/banker: ruthless, cunning, greedy, licentious, power hungry and litigious. In some cases, ignorant.
A society enthralled by such characteristics in its leaders produced a Bush, a Trump, a Zuckerberg, a Tillerson and a Weinstein.
Every institution in this country has an abundance of similar characters within its upper ranks of which many if not almost all are at the very top.
Nothing and nowhere is spared: academic, religious, industrial, journalistic, military, financial, educational, political and artistic.
It's a rot that permeates the whole country, a fungus connecting coast to coast through the middle.
Decent, moral and conscientious people are probably still in the majority but hold less and less power.
Mueller should have been a president, or at least a vice-president. Trump should be in jail, or at least bankrupt.
It will take a Herculean effort to restore decency, morality and conscientiousness to American public life. Let's wait and see what Americans can do.
3
Trump got elected because the other side was so bad. Now tell me, is “CHANGE”, really so hard to understand?
2
Wrong. He was elected because enough bigots, racists and dupes in key areas suckered for his "message". No one was worse than Trump. Hillary was only worse in the cult of personality. Every thinking person realizes there was only one candidate with the qualifications to be president on the ballot in 2016, and we all know who she was.
3
More than anything it was right wing TV. Fox news went with the story about Obama not being an American for years with Trump leading the charge.
3
For heaven sakes -- physician heal thyself! In proportion, print media is just as much to blame. Even the New York Times gave moral equivalence to both Clinton and Trump throughout the "presidential" campaign. That, after helping facilitate the invasion of Iraq and re-election of George W. Bush. I am awed by and grateful for the role you are playing now, but where were you then???
4
FYI. it is not the tech-savvy liberals but the Conservatives who are misusing and manipulating the media to achieve their own agenda. They have used the media disseminating lies and changing results of elections. Facebook's data had some impact, somewhere in Trump's victory? You're kidding, right? His entire Presidency is one big con. And remember, fake news started with Trump. That he and his friends use Facebook nefariously, blatantly and create an alternate universe. So is twitter, Google, Instagram being manipulated. And don't blame liberals for that!
3
In 2008, Hillary Clinton was defeated in the DNC primary process by Barack Obama, a man who at that time was a little known senator from Illinois who had not even served out a single full term. In spite of racist attitudes, Obama's description of himself as a "skinny kid with a funny name" and connections that enabled Hillary to become a senator in New York after 8 years as First Lady, voters chose a comparative unknown over Hillary. In 2016, Obama implored voters at the DNC convention to cast their votes for Hillary as a way to show their approval for his legacy. At the end of the day, most of the coverage of Donald Trump on every major network was condemnatory, and Fox News (which lost its blue collar base to Breitbart) was lukewarm in its coverage of Trump at best. The sad fact is that Hillary lost for a multitude of reasons in 2016, and most of them have nothing to do with anything other than who she was as a candidate.
2
Maybe it was TV, or Facebook, the Russians, Fox and Friends, the FBI, or just maybe enough people thought Donald Trump would make a better president than the alternatives.
2
Enough people were wrong, weren't they?
3
"It won't have served the truth"
The most controversial idea of our time is the idea that the truth will win in the end. The evidence against it is obvious, ranging from the post-modern displacement of truth in universities to Trumpian displacement of truth in politics. Those on the side of truth often don't win. But in the long term, truth has a major advantage: reality doesn't go away. If you plan to keep the lights on, someone has to deal in truth about energy supply, electric grids, and making lightbulbs. If you plan to eat in January, someone has to deal in truth about growing, transporting, and storing food. It seems that we humans prefer to deal in abstractions and that often these obscure the truth rather than make it clear. Our preference for abstraction can be hacked by people like Trump and Zuckerberg to achieve their own ends. What will happen? Either a counter movement builds that insists on truth as the essential thing and is willing to compromise on abstractions like political affiliations. Or continued conflicts between groups committed to complex abstractions will become unstable. Instability of abstractions eventually leads to reality imposing itself on us after breakdown in political, economic, and environmental systems ends in no lights and no food. Truth will likely win in the end, but the path from here to a healthy society that celebrates simple truth rather than complex abstractions is not clear.
1
The Trump campaign and ultimate victory represented the culmination of an unholy alliance of entertainment, politics and news that has been coming together since the early 1990's. Thank Rush for getting it all started. We love to be entertained, we see politics as sport and we lack the skills to dive into original sources to find our own news. This will not get better any time soon.
2
This is very good media analysis. I have had animated discussions with my 20-something son about Trump's ability to make lightning strike in the same place twice in 2020 OR if "Trumpism" will outlive Trump in the guise of some other celebrity.
I argue that unlike 2015-16 Trump, in 2020 he'll have a record of policies and behavior opponents will use. As to whether another "unsuccessful-businessman-posing-as-a-very-successful-businessman-on-TV" model could be emulated by someone else, I fail to see who that could be. Maybe Mark Cuban.
Trump was a one-of-a-kind hybrid that appeared at just the right(wrong?) time in America.
Electioneering has always been about selling voters a bill of goods - and the selling has been done via various means be it advertising via megaphones, pamphlets, door-to-door, newspapers ads, television ads, and now social media. Ideally it should be done by persuading via argument, but that's old school in a world where evidence and facts mattered. For a greater part of the 20th and now 21st century it has been and is about manipulating - conning - the voters. And millions of voters are perfectly happy to be conned . . .
5
The prime reasons why Trump and his outrageous behavior , managed to win the presidency is simplicity itself: Trump never expected to win it. In the months and year preceding the 2016 election, Trump's behavior verged on what normal politicians thought was insanity and what TV watching red staters thought was brave and bold tell-it-like it is honesty. This is why so many Trump supporters, interviewed after some of his more outrageous statements, inevitable said
So many people who loved Trump also watched and loved Pro Wrestling-which they also knew was full of hot air, and mostly was performance-not reality.
Just before election day: Trump seemed to give up and close his election effort. He had read the British odds,maker's prediction of a Clinton win, and the NYTimes predicted she would win. He never expected to become president.
This is why he calls the Democrats the failed party. ThatDemocrats and Hillary should have won but managed to lose an easy election.
What no one expected was what happened: 15 million Democrats also read the predictions-sure of victory- they decided not to vote for Clinton and thus, Democrats elected Trump.
2
Trump's wishes come true are his own nightmares.
1
And, unfortunately, our nightmares now.
Douthat is in my opinion correct that it was television that made Trump a viable Presidential candidate. Both the fake reality shows and the many many appearances on Fox "News", in most of which Trump lied extensively, especially as the head of the "Birthers", gave him powerful cred among Republican voters. But the benefits Trump gained from Facebook and other social media were also major, and may have been necessary to his electoral victory.
That the one was important, and necessary as a cause, does not mean that the other was also important, and necessary as a cause.
3
The media was complicit in Trump's success in gaining office. No, he really wasn't duly elected as having lost by over 3,000,000 popular votes. The system was gamed through exploitation of media including television, print and social. The truth was lost early on as the New York Times, Washington Post, etc., and television outlets and social platforms repeated his lies without calling them into question. News outlets hired talking heads who repeated his phony claims in the gesture of "equality." When did lies need to be given equal time? We are now a lost country when things could have turned out much differently were it not for the ignorance of so many and the assistance of the media.
3
There's nothing quite like standing in line to vote for an hour only to see one's vote nullified by the slavery-born Electoral College.
A country that insults intelligence like this one invites a lot of dirt kicked in its face.
4
Who decides which is a lie and which is a truth ? It is normal to think that the "others" are propagating falsehood and we are right, but is that way of thinking correct, objective ?
And, by the way, you say yourself that Trump lost the popular vote, so how could have been possible for the media, Russia (or whatever) to know in advance that they needed to manipulate the voters just in three States to make the difference (win the Electoral College ) ?
That's Science fiction pure !
I have a more simplistic view. My take on 'what happened in 2016' was that major media outlets basically covered every single word and rally that Donald Trump spoke and/or appeared at from the minute he came down that escalator, until the day he won. they did this under the assumption that the viewing audience would react exactly the same way as their editorial staff and reporters, to wit: the more they showed, the more they would ensure a loss. and they were 100% wrong. they should have realized that this was a totally false assumption after the McCain / Mexicans / Muslims / Gold Star Mom comments didn't immediately derail his candidacy, but they didn't - they just continued to ratchet-up and double-down the extent of his coverage, presumably under the assumption that the next 'can you believe what he just said ' comment would surely reverse the course of public opinion. and it didn't. Hillary, on the other hand, was lucky if she got maybe a few speech excerpts and sound bites on the news coverage. I think it was maybe two weeks before the election that a Hillary rally actually got start-to-finish coverage, but by then, her stump speech and the enthusiasm-level of her rallies just didn't compare. So, I disagree. Trump didn't 'hack' the media. He simply gave them what they wanted, and they ran with it. they had the power, at all times, to just turn off the camera every once in a while, and never thought to do so.
7
Trump seems to be a rejection of all the other Bible-thumping juveniles running against him in the Republican primaries.
2
I understand and agree with you that television coverage of Trump's antics and not his policies helped him win the election.
What I don't understand is why Trump's birtherism didn't disqualify him to be the Republican nominee or our President in the eyes of almost all Americans. The Presidency is not World Wide Wrestling. A buffoon is not fit to lead the free world.
As we've discovered.
3
People who would vote for Trump without seeing his tax returns are far too stupid to know how ignorant they are.
2
MSNBC drove me nuts with the point Douthat makes. And I have yet to hear any anchor acknowledge much less regret or show a sign they took any lesson from their complicity in creating this dreadful ‘reality show’ we’re now living in.
Instead, I hear revisionism from those same anchors, perhaps none worse than Joe Scarborough but others too only touting themselves as having been prescient non-genuflectors while the reality was they had routinely given Trump carte blanche free media time 24/7.
Most egregious to me was a predictably fateful choice to train TV screens on empty stages and tarmacs in extended anticipation of Trump arrivals. They deified him by making him so vital that other news was relegated to voiceover (ignoring their Reagan-era lesson that what shows on screen trumps whatever words are voiced over) while viewers were asked - and presumably many obliged - to face a screen whose implicit message was "This man is so important that just waiting for him is the most important thing we could be showing you, the viewer/voter and holder of democracy's fate."
It was disgusting. I often emailed in protest to the only anchors who still provide email contacts - Maddow, Hayes, and Melber. Only Ari responded, to his credit, but only to be defensive of network choices.
Yet there's a bigger culprit: the failure of American education to graduate a plurality of critical thinker-voters who could resist that deification message and see through all the ruses and complicities.
6
Trump swept in to save cable "news" from what was going to be The World's Most Boring Race, with the Clinton and Jeb! money machines behind their respective and mostly dissimilar candidates grinding their way to election night, out-hawking the other on foreign policy, debating whether mothers should get four or only three weeks of paid maternity leave. The Trump clown show was and has been heroin to a cable news industry addicted to making headlines rather than reporting.
CNN, which I used to have grudging respect for as at least a comparatively serious program, jumped on the Trump train and never looked back. Never did they seriously examine Trump's or other candidates' policies or qualifications, but hyperventilated about every last idiocy from his mouth, allowing him to push himself to the front of the crowd and stay there. It was all Trump, all the time. And since the election, CNN has made its living holding its hand to its mouth in horror, breathlessly reporting every outburst from the Toddler-in-Chief as "Breaking News!" rather than do any real reporting.
Trump does not merely expose the sickness on the right. He is a symptom of a national disease. In many ways, it has taken this absurd, sick, farce of a man to exposed how and shallow our citizenry and many of our institutions have become.
5
During the primaries, the Democrat media gave Trump hundreds of millions of dollars in free air time they denied all the mainstream conservative candidates, then as soon as he was nominated, savagely turned on him with the most negative coverage of any modern POTUS nominee.
Why?
The Democrat media made a fundamental mistake that Trump would be easiest GOP nominee for their dowager queen in waiting to defeat, when in fact heartland voters saw Trump as a giant middle finger to the bipartisan establishment they increasingly hate.
2
Yes, Trump is the Knight of Resentment for all the Americans who can't stand the sight of other people looking happy.
2
The correct phrase is “Democratic media.” Please insult your imagined cultural enemies with proper grammar; otherwise you sound like a congressman.
3
My take away from this, blame it all on left leaning liberals and Obama. Blame it on Television.
No mention is made of traditional print or online journalists and pundits such as Mr. Douthat himself or Maureen Dowd or David Brooks who never passed up an opportunity to impune Hillary Clinton.
As a left leaning liberal I express my sincere apology for television news and cable TV encouraging a left - right divide and making all of those Republicans vote for Donald Trump. Just how could we progressives have been so stupid. God only knows we must also be responsible for Senator McConnell's war on Obama.
We will try and do better this November.
3
As for the free infomercials look no further than Hillary Clinton. She could have demanded equal time but instead she cowered in the face of his abuse, preferring to remain cloistered in the safe space of the donor class and relying on her status as royalty. Hillary Clinton was a tailor made punching bag for Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders (or Joe Biden or Martin O'Malley) would have beaten Donald Trump as Trump's own pollster acknowledges
2
Tell me something I don't already know
2
Ross, Please put on your glasses. You barely mention the alternative universe that is Fox News - now a wholly owned subsidiary of Trumplandia. Talk about the media being hacked. Lots of blame to go around, yes. But let's call a spade a spade: Faux (Fox) News is a propaganda machine and a danger to our democracy.
5
I can scarcely believe it. You write a column, addressing "fake news," waxing prolific over NBC and CNN, and nary a word about Fox News. You live in a different universe than most of your readers here.
7
Best editorial I've read by Mr. Douthat.
Not a high bar to clear. But in Trumpworld that's all that is needed.
3
Were you outraged when Obama manipulated data from Facebook and other social media platforms in 2012? No somehow when a liberal uses social media to help his campaign its fine but heaven forbid a conservative....especially Trump .... from using social media.
2
The democrats did EXACTLY the same thing back in 2014 so spare me the faux outrage.
2
"the liberal establishment’s fixation on Facebook’s 2016 sins — first the transmission of fake news and now the exploitation of its data by the Trump campaign or its appendages — still feels like a classic example of blaming something new"?
HUH?
How about blaming an online info system that's full of holes because people then believe what they see there as "truthful" or "honest", even when it's manipulated and distorted by willful malefactors in the service of the likes of Trump, Putin, Robert Mercer, and the Koch Bros?
And what's all this "liberal media" bashing? So if you spotlight corrupt use of data and information, you're automatically "liberal"? Talk about the very worst, utterly disingenuous distortions of events!
Sorry, but with such logical-contortionist rhetorical antics, you (like David Brooks) have really willfully given up your writer's privileges to be taken seriously as an analyst or even an intellectually honest one! Y'ore really acting like a flak-catcher and distorter of news and ideas for Trump and the other dark forces attacking US democracy and the free exchange of honest ideas! Was some cheap notoriety really worth that?
2
It was not TV that got trump elected, it was the republican party. It is the republican party that keeps him in office. It is the republican party that bears the responsibility for trump. trump is the republican party. the republican party is trump.
It sounds simple. It is simple. If any one is to blame for trump it is the republicans, stupid.
Now vote them out of office in November!
4
Has the NYTimes posted it's own analytics systems usage with 100% transparency?
If I read a NYTimes article online, or even order it for my driveway, what data is collected and to whom is it sent?
I don't mean that the NYTimes has printed some indecipherable "privacy policy." No, I want to know the 100% techno ins and outs, how much is paid, and to whom, and what is bought and sold.
Without bashing or hailing Trump on this, let's make sure what monetary and political interests are represented on the NYTimes editorial page before we reach any conclusions.
17
The media took Trump, a sow's ear, and turned him into a silk purse. Yep it can be done.
The Real Trump Story: "The Art of the Steal"
I think the media doesn't want anyone know that Trump is so disconnected from reality that covering his freak show doesn't offend any advertisers.
1
Wow, Douthat manages to go after all his standard wingnut boogiemen, barely mentions Fox in passing and slam Silicon Valley's profit oriented business model as "liberal", because that is really all he does.
Here's a clue for you Ross, the voters who put trump in office weren't watching CNN or MSNBC, they were watching Fox become an arm of the campaign and now his propaganda arm and key advisors.
Meanwhile your tepid opposition just illustrated how devoid of integrity current conservatism has become.
3
Tom, you say "Here's a clue for you Ross, the voters who put trump in office weren't watching CNN or MSNBC, they were watching Fox become an arm of the campaign and now his propaganda arm and key advisors."
Are you so sure? By one calculus (and all it took was one), the Electoral College vote was the result of enough Obama voters switching to Trump. Do you think that former Obama voters were Fox News addicts? I rather doubt it. Those who could have switched from Obama to Trump must surely be indictments on the middle-to-left segments of the MSM and potentially even MSNBC watchers, the supposedly most 'liberal' of the televised MSM? - unless they were voters who somehow ignore media altogether? Are there such creatures remaining? and who also vote?
As I noted elsewhere, we (Douthat included) continue to miss the biggest culprit which is having an electorate who graduates from high school already credentialed in critical thinking skills, the single most important thing that should be a sine qua non for that diploma. It is what democracy depends on - free speech, a press that delivers real (not 'false equivalency') information, and a readership that knows how to distinguish real from fake, glitter from gold, truth from hype, assumptions and myths from facts.
The U.S. has passed into the hands of those who fail Critical Thinking 101, led by none other than Trump himself, a Pied Piper for irrational, delusional, egocentric wishful thinking if ever there was.
3
Why are so addicted to Trump? We get a big dose of his spittle every day and it keeps getting reported. Every move he makes, every tweet he posts is nothing more than fodder for an overly informationed society. Many don't have the time or the inclination to delve deeper than a headline. That's why tweets are Cult45's go to form of communication.
Maybe if we had just one story a day about the egomaniacal dictator, and focused on so many other things that need attention, we could get some relief from the constant prattle that does nothing but feed an already gorged ego.
Winning elections through use of propaganda trequires that a powerful and important fraction of the voting populace-in the case ofTrump-be so ignorant and so easily led that they will essentially buy a gun , hold it to their head and pull the trigger-twice if it misfires first.
Statistical vote counts after the election of Trump show-without a doubt, that the people who believed the propaganda and who then voted based upon it's falsehoods, were millions of registered Democrats, many independents and some, middle of the road Republicans. That many hard right GOP members would believe almost any outrageous lie about Democrats goes without saying, but polls and specialists in election prediction-including the NY Times-counted them They did not count the fact that Democrats and youthful activists-many who voted their fisrt time for Obama-would believe Russian and GOP, anti Clinton lies, and then vote for people outside and to the left of Mrs Clinton.
It took some 10 to 15 million voters who might have voted for Obama, to dump Mrs Clinton aNd vote for Sanders or just not vote at all-to make Trump's long shot a winner. Trump even expected to lose. That's a lot of dummies , together.
I
1
It is a new experience for me to agree with Mr. Douthat. He Trump remains for the news junkie a phenomena, and for the sweet toothed, a canoli.
Like Trump "Hacked the Media", Douthat drops another egg. I think the guy sees Liberals everywhere. Give him some "Obamacare" and he'll be alright in the morning.
2
History will show that cable TV and all of the free press where anchored to The Donald's "loco"-motive. But this has been pretty much true for anyone interested in the outcome of democracy and the United States. How could we not? We've never witnessed this behavior, ever, and on some many levels.
That said, to pin his win on the "success" of The Donald's wack-a-do show, is a bit short sighted. Instead, reality TV, The Kardashian's, and even professional sports, is part of a broader dumbing down of America that has been going on for decades. America needed escape. The Donald provided it in spades.
Hopefully, history will also show that, The Donald provided us with the great civics lesson in history, and that through his ruse, America woke. May his lies, tweets, behavior, demons, self-interested agenda, family, nefarious activities, grade school bully antics, and a tiring unending list of traits we teach our children to avoid, be the history lesson we all participate in as his last reality show get cancelled.
2
General low level of education which results in poor critical thinking may blind people to “assume” that reality tv is real rather than fake. Do not blame the messenger (media). It’s our culture of mediocrity that allows this to happen.
1
The National Review is basically a joke now, no need to reference their articles. Trump won because he told suburban white people, who live in racially homogenized communities, that black and brown people were lazy, criminals coming to kill them and take their stuff. End of story. I'm so sick of conservative columnists and the "yeah, but Jefferson invented the dumbwaiter" columns that have been a weekly presence since the election.
2
The New York Times, every day, gave dominating coverage to Trump even if the reporters were exposing his ineptness to be President. I rarely read an article on Hillary Clinton or her policies. The articles I did read rarely offered anything thoughtful. I don’t watch TV news so I cannot comment on that effect but as a daily reader of The New York Times, I was very aware of the abysmal coverage given to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. In real time. All the time.
2
This is class misdirection from the first paragraph. The political failures of the Obama era, whatever they were, don't hold a candle to the catastrophe that is our current administration. And the misdirection goes on from there. Nothing to see here. No massive lies and propaganda via an orchestrated campaign on social media. Move along. Move along.
I wish almost every day that we still had the Obama presidency with all its failures. You know, failures like tracking down Osama Bin Laden, like healthcare for millions of Americans, like taking the economy from near collapse to sustained growth, like actual protections for consumers and the environment, like welcoming refugees and the needy, like a government that helps the poor.
Let us stop carving out exceptions where there are none. Everything our current president and his followers touches turns becomes befouled, warped, tainted and full of lies. And that includes their use and abuse of social media.
3
Well written thoughtful piece. During the election season, the insistence of CNN of having Trump supporters like McEnany, Lewandowski and Lord, while excluding other conservative commentators, had the effect of normalizing Trump and the Trump campaign to people who watched CNN. I found CNN hard to watch during that period of time because of the insistence on the "dog fight" nature of the news shows that the inclusion of either Lord, Lewandowski or McEnany insured.
You are correct, Trump is much smarter than he is given credit for. I suggest you respect him and stand off to the side with the other weak minded loud mouths and let him fix our country and the economy.
Surprisingly, some people voted against Trump by never, ever watching his show. We in NYC knew all along that Trump was a chump. Only those who don't have a life would watch "reality" TV and take it seriously.
You are correct, and I hardly ever agree with you, Ross, that TV helped him win. Many studies have proven that people vote for names and faces they recognize without any idea of what is underneath that facade. It is particularly true in this age when people when network TV is at an all time low, not just in viewers, but in quality. Most of the shows are violent, simplistic and are written poorly. We have only 44 minutes of actual "showtime" in a one hour show. The rest is commercials. That wasn't always true.
So, what, exactly is your definition of a "liberal?" Do you even know anyone who is a big, bad, nasty liberal? Let's see, since I am one, I can say that we care about each other more than money, we care about the planet, the poor, the infirm, the young, the weak, the disenfranchised and the elderly. We care that people are honest, reliable, trustworthy but we don't care if they are LGBT+, have any color skin, or have any religion. We are not judging the people who work for a living, immigrants, or NYT opinion columnists. We read, we attend concerts, we go to museums, we have fun. We do not and have never liked DJT and his ilk. If this makes us "East Coast Elite" looking down our noses at "the base" then the base has a lot to learn. That includes you, too.
2
The primary seed that resulted in the Trump presidency was the fact that enough of the electorate viewed his absurd "reality" show and swallowed the tripe. Really, how does this country get past that?
1
Douthat raises some valid points - but note how compelled he feels to start the editorial by somehow blaming liberals for the rise of Trump. Really? The roots of Trumpism pre-date even the Apprentice, with Reagan and states' rights, through to GWB's manifest unfitness for office and war crimes, along with the right's courting of evangelicals, and the nutty fringe who now are no longer on the margins. The mainstream conservative commentariat fed into all of that. Democrats have their own issues, most certainly, and have not always yielded the strongest of candidates. But the rise of Trump is a distinctly conservative and Republican phenomenon. Stop blaming liberals for all the ills in society.
2
The cable TV news channels and broadcast networks loved Trump because he was great television. The GOP primary debates were political TV's equivalent of WWE wrestling, an idiom with which Trump has no small amount of familiarity. He was good for ratings. And besides, it wasn't as if he had any chance of actually being nominated, let alone elected. Right?
Which serves as a reminder that TV news values are, at bottom, TV values more than they are news values. If it's a choice between the debate some bit of legislation with the potential to affect millions and the fraudulent hijacking of a hot-air balloon by a little kid, it's obvious which will soak up air time.
There is considerable wisdom in Farhad Manjoo's recent column for The Times about using print media as a news source rather than social media or broadcast. One needn't go to the extremes of that Ohio man who walled himself off from all news to gain the perspective that one loses in the bombardment of tweets, alerts and memes.
Manjoo column: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/technology/two-months-news-newspapers...
1
TV made him for sure. But it ruined Clinton at the same time. Maybe fairer to say that she destroyed herself on TV. Terribly uninspiring rallies, boring interviews, and a noticeably condescending tone. Just painful to watch.
1
Ross is being naïve. Steve Bannon said he wanted to change society and get rid of the state. Anyone who thinks he was not highly influential in the race is not thinking straight.
The msm did a horrible job of covering things, we knew it at the time and complained about it. This isn't news.
Trump was a dupe. He thought it was his willing personality and wonderful ideas and was happy to be the clown at the front of the stage.
Listen to this, and remember that he won by only 70,000 votes in a few swing states, he did not win the popular vote. And then look at the state of the nation now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXdYSQ6nu-M
This is Chris Wylie in an interview with The Guardian on how CA did things.
1
Cut the cord. Stop watching cable news. Be your own news editor. Read Mother Jones AND The Drudge Report. Understand that the comments sections such as this one are often featuring paid commenters and trolls. Mr. Douthat is completely correct. It was all about the imbalance of exposure on TV worth billions and not the pittance the Russians and CA spent.
I have never understood the attraction to Trump, even by well educated citizens. I have also never understood the attraction to reality TV, having figured out early that it was fake TV. Maybe Ross is right: it was TV that did it.
By now all but the few believers must be sick of him. I hope.
1
The media made Trump into a star with their pre-election coverage. He was
news and ratings. They either didn't realize what a disaster they were creating or they just didn't care. Probably the latter.
Many things contributed to Trump's election. One could very well be the media who ate up every outrage and never took him seriously. But to think that there were not other serious factors; Russia, Facebook, Cambridge is naive. Mr. Dothat, I doubt you have seen the IG's report in advance of the rest of us, nor are you fully informed as to what the details are about the FB breach. You are putting the proverbial cart before the elephant.
1
This is the saddest and most important part of this piece:
"The depth and breadth of Trump skepticism among right-wing pundits was a pretty solid indicator of his unfitness for high office. But especially once he won the nomination this skepticism was often filtered out of cable coverage, because the important thing was to maintain the partisan shouting-match model. This in turn encouraged a sense that this was just a typical right-versus-left election, in which you should vote for Trump if you usually voted for Republicans … and in the end that’s what most G.O.P. voters did."
That no one bothered to pay attention to the cretin insinuating itself into the presidency. That the ones (on both sides) who could have stopped this insanity preferred to profit from, or ignore it -- or both.
And here we are. We are nowhere near where we can start picking up the pieces again.
Beside the fact that Hillary Clinton was a seriously flawed candidate and we had suffered through 8 years of Mitch McConnell obstructing Obama and almost openly using "race" as the reason, the fact is that Trump is not some accident of history. He's the culmination of all the years of illegality and immorality and propaganda (i.e., lies) coming out of the GOP. The vast majority of people who voted for Trump were worked into a frenzy to vote their hatreds, of race, women's rights, gays, while the real agenda is to strip them of all the money and services the GOP can grab.
2
I wonder if the message is becoming more important than the medium, because the message plays similarly across all media. Trump may negotiate with the expected reaction across media. It's a kind of judo, using the opponents' predicted reaction against them.
Take tariffs. Assume Trump's ultimate goal is what he has said all along, to go after China. He could just go after China, in which case, there would be the expected wave of criticism of his doing that. But by going after steel and aluminum first, hurting our allies in Canada and Europe, the inevitable reaction was "Why didn't you go after China, dummy?"
So then Trump goes after China and a lot of people get cornered into saying he's right. This tactic is media-independent, because they all react pretty much the same way. If you can sucker the newsmakers, you can sucker the news.
The media also sees news in terms of what has already been news. An easy thing to do is to go back to what Trump said before and compare it with what he's saying now. Trump's inconsistency is an established slant, and getting the evidence only takes a few clicks. So you quote what he's said before, show how inconsistent he is, and then he becomes more consistent a few days later and gets credit for that, even though his original position wasn't any good to begin with.
So, regardless of the Russians and the algorithms, we are still getting played by tactics that have been around for a long time. Good column, Douthat!
Facebook and Twitter have been blight, and I use neither. If only Trump had never learned how to Tweet, the world would be a better place. A dear friend flies for a living and always sends photos of his food. At some point, I want to quote Jerry Seinfeld and reply, "You're eating a bagel! Nobody cares!"
I think you make a compelling case, except for one key point: yes, the old media helped him win the Republican nomination, but not the election. It was the Democrats' gaming of the system, and the bias of the old media, in favor of HRC to nominate the only person Trump could have beaten that won him the Presidency.
2
For "The Apprentice" to have an effect, millions of people would've had to watch it on a regular basis. Somehow I don't see that.
It is true that the MSM gave Trump billions worth of free air time; there's something to that.
I would like to add a "yes and" statement to this insightful piece. TV networks also picked their favorite candidate in 2007-2008 when they promoted an attractive but inexperienced Democratic Party candidate named Barack Obama over his less attractive but far more qualified opponent, Hilary Clinton. She had the substance, but he had the style, and style drove ratings. I have come to the conclusion that the average voter will endorse whoever they find most entertaining.
1
Sorry to disagree with this article, but how we got here had to do with all of it in varying degrees.
1
"The depth and breadth of Trump skepticism among right-wing pundits was a pretty solid indicator of his unfitness for high office. "
Right-wing pundits being the sole arbiters of what is correct and decent in this world, eh? I've always wondered why I should listen to pundits. Now I know it's because they're smarter than the rest of us. Smarter than liberal elites, even. Silly me. If right-wing pundits had the intellectual honesty to cheer Trump on when he does good things, I'd listen more when they think he's wrong. But from what I can tell, they're the "all against Trump, right or wrong" types.
I was no Trump fan, and I'm not the "all FOR Trump, right or wrong" type. But I am dead certain that -- no matter what -- he's better than Hillary.
Why is he better than Hillary? He has played golf one out of every 4 days as president and lies non stop. What is it thst she has done that gives Trump a pass even now?
1
Yes media ratings, FB and others were co-opted. Even the (according to Trump) "Fake News Mainstream Media" gave only belated and meager scrutiny to the Trumpian barrage. Trump may be intellectually vacuous, but not abjectly stupid when it comes to media. To all the aforementioned we can add the Russians.
Evangelicals helped by abandoning principle in the hope of political gain, and the Republican's years of starving public education bore fruit in the form an undereducated and undiscerning electorate who "bought" the offal being offered. Let's hope that the buyers remorse widely felt is a game changer in the 2018 and 2020 elections.
1
This is a good analysis of the media influences. But there is no mention of the foundation problems - lack of critical thinking skills and moral discernment in the voting population.
1
Nothing has changed, though.
No news station can talk about anything other than Trump.
Clearly he sells, and media companies make money off of him. The lovers want to hear how great he is and how unfairly he's being treated, and the haters want to be outraged again and again.
So my question is why does he fascinate?
My family is planning a trip to DC in the near future, and my wife and I expressed interest in seeing the White House (not Trump). My teenage daughter was revolted by the idea in case we happen to see Trump. I encouraged her to not spend any of her time thinking about him at all. She'll be much happier that way. I think she has actually taken my advice!
1
"If the trauma of Trump’s victory turns social-media gatekeepers into more aggressive and self-conscious stewards of the liberal consensus, the current freakout will have more than served its political purpose."
Seems as if that's Ross' real point. Liberals (TV execs, newspapers, etc.) are hoist on their own petard. They are responsible for Trump's victory. Had they only listened to the moral Republicans, this would not have happened; blame cannot be shifted onto Facebook, et al.
Proposing an argument dependent on a shallow understanding of the the statistical realities of getting votes on the margins and the usual denial involved in there's no there there, Ross reminds us again and again that only his view of morality can save us from our baser instincts and their sad consequences.
3
It would be a lie to deny that Trump and associates cooperated with a firm assisting PACs and Putin to promote the false narratives about HRC. Mainstream media did not run Lock Her Up, Killery, Pizzagate, memes . Those fantasies were strictly Fox, Bots, and Cambridge PR crooks. Money from Vlad behind FBook ads? Mercer and Bannon dancing with bad PACs. Sure, billions in free air and print from MSM, but the target groups were the easily duped, loopy still in love with Trump idiots, and the last minute smear of HRC kept millions of Obama voters home.
Why Donald? A Putin pick for his vulnerability and indebtedness (hundreds of millions of laundered rubles will buy a lot of loyalty). A GOP pick for his promise to give the .01% and corporations tax cuts. Lock them Up.
Then, Ross, for your penance, ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. On your knees for your sins of omission.
2
I don't buy into the implication that the Trump blame starts with NBC and The Apprentice. That show was meant to be entertainment, it didn't require many ties to reality, and NBC execs would have needed a crystal ball or time machine to know they were establishing a false persona and unwittingly boosting a real actual presidential contender.
Douthat manages to write an entire article about Trump and the media with one passing reference to the effect of Fox news. Fox is now the unofficial adviser to the president--and one he obsessively watches, believes, and acts upon. Fox is also nakedly partisan, and deceitful. It is also the policy arm of the Republican party (along with the NRA).
The issue of money driving much of the TV editorial choices is worth making--but not to the exclusion of considering the impact of ideology driving significant TV segments.
The continuing foolishness of "both-sideerism", talking head "he-said, she-said" reporting, and the apparent conviction that both sides are either equally right or equally wrong so half-way between must be right are the major causes of systematic dishonest reporting.
Unfortunately, the thrill of "knowing the truth" from trusted sources as shown by their access to "private" Facebook pages is a driver that amplifies all else that is wrong. It has the same disproportionate impact as pronouncements from a trusted clergy has. Concern about the violating the assumptions built into the Facebook model of dealing only with your group of friends is disproportionately important to decisions about political issues.
2
You are absolutely correct about the influence of television news and talk on the 2016 election. Shows like Morning Joe gave Trump all the coverage he could ever want.
I still think newspapers, and television give him way too much coverage. If you stopped writing about him all the time, he wouldn't know what to do.
There are more things going on in the world than Donald Trump.
Katie Snyder, Minnepolis
Yes, TV played a significant role in giving Trump free coverage; however, the author conveniently leaves out that it was private sector business, Cambridge Analytica, owned by Robert Mercer, a staunch Trump supporter and alt-right mega-mogul, that mined the data, and evidently engaged in smear campaigns and even threats to other candidates in order to secure Trump's win. Zuckerberg sold Americans' privacy for profit. Anyone who's seen the video of Alexander Nix bragging about the company's ability to manipulate people's thoughts and ideas, cannot deny that the company profited from and contributed in a major way to Trump's win. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, two privately owned companies, are directly involved and both acted for profit without regard to morality. This article is the same old drivel--blame the media in a desperate attempt to distract from the role of private industry in manipulating the electorate.
1
I think this a correct assumption. However, I think the media companies did cover and still cover everything Trump not because they are left leaning but because it got ratings. People would listen in to find out what outrageous thing Trump said or did that day. They still do and it still provides them with high ratings.
Since I so frequently disagree with Mr. Douthat, in whole or part, it is a great pleasure to endorse the gist if not entirely the whole substance of this statement. The TV execs who saw dollars in Trump helped make this disaster. There's just no question about that, in my mind.
The electoral college made Trump the winner, in an election he actually lost, by almost 3 million votes.
1
Uh, no. He actually WON the election. That's why he's President. Hillary was voted queen of California. That's all.
1
The key to understanding this and all the other freakouts is "surprise victory."
Those who "know" did not see this one coming. They were blind-sided, left without explanation. They had no idea what had just happened, never even suspected it coming.
Since then, they've thrashed about in search of understanding, really in search of something to blame that isn't what they said or did while so clueless.
This is important mostly because they've put their energy into this blame, instead of into doing what it takes to win next time. Winning next time is the only thing that matters now.
4
The media has a love, hate relationship with Trump--mostly love. He gives them a daily dose of insanity categorized mostly on Cable News as "breaking news" stories which are repeated word for word by all of the commentators throughout the day and weeks, months, etc. How old does breaking news have to be before it's no longer just breaking? Of course, finally finding the smoking gun to prove "collusion with the Russians" is always in the background and has no expiration date for reporting. In addition, the late night comedians have an endless supply of material that has created a huge following for them. SNL has been rescued from the dead and prolonged the careers of some of its performers because of the man. They had a long ride with Sarah Palin and now they have it replenished with someone to keep the ball rolling. Hopefully for SNL, at least until the end of his term. How boring it would have been if Hillary had won.
How boring it would have been if Hillary had won.
Sometimes, during this political maelstrom, I just wish for boredom. Recent studies have shown that periods of boredom are essential to creative thinking.
2
I read that study in the Onion.
It's not his presidency for which the dominant media outlets bear disproportionate responsibility but rather that Donald Trump became a viable candidate because of the free advertising he received. Had the media relegated his antics to the level they merited, Mr. Trump never would have received the national attention he garnered. Declarations notwithstanding that he was self funding his campaign, how likely was it that Mr. Trump would have risked investing his own resources to pay for the amount of advertising which instead his showmanship enabled him to receive for free? There is serious question about whether or not he actually had that much money.
Ultimately, undiscerning voters made Donald Trump president. Therefore, an article in today's NYT about inadequate teacher pay is related to this story. If we don't compensate our teachers, we won't retain and attract the best talent to educate the next generation of voters. Voters who do not have a good education in English won't learn how to read carefully and critically, or even want to read at all. Voters who don't learn American and world history will not understand the context of current events, or whether or not what they are being told is true, or even how our government works. Voters without a fundamental grounding in arithmetic and basic math don't know if a budget argument makes any sense. Etc. We need to fund teachers if we want a discerning citizenry.
7
I agree. I am so sick of the whole "everyone is entitled to their own opinion" school of journalism where this phrase can be used to both justify or dismiss an idea without ever discussing the relative merits of opposing ideas.
1
Trump is the puppet of Rupert Murdoch. As the head of Fox News Murdoch is doing the same thing as William Randolph Hearst did, by controlling what and who is in the news, Murdoch can make or break a person's political career.
There may be those that will say that Trump was controlling the news but he couldn't get away with it without the heads of certain media companies.
2
Credit where credit is due. Trump told the voters he was deeply cynical, they too were deeply cynical and he offered the opportunity to be deeply cynical together. He called it making America great again.
3
It's been a long time since I've seen a column just nail it so efficiently, on social media, (fake) reality media, old media, and Trump's media mastery.
1
I wish the cable networks wouldn't cover every Trump rally. The cameras need to be there just in case, but his repetitive rants and the constant demeaning of our institutions are not news. This man is not a patriot. His mere vocalizations are aiding and abetting our enemies contrary to the oath he took.
2
Right. A eminently corrupt candidate, who calls half the nation "deplorables" is what a REAL patriot looks like.
If you don't see a difference between those two by this time, you never will. Funny how some people always bring up Clinton and Obama whenever their boy is criticized.
1
"Nothing that Cambridge Analytica did to help the Trump campaign target swing voters (and there’s reason to think it didn’t do as much as it claimed) had anything remotely like the impact of this #alwaysTrump tsunami, which probably added up to more than $2 billion in effective advertising for his campaign during the primary season, a flood that drowned all of his rivals’ pathetic tens of millions." Are you certain about this claim? In the CH4 British tape they stated that they basically direct elections in all their facets. Then there are the Russian trolls. Has anyone triangulated these organizations (and perhaps others) to find their if they are interconnected?
1
This is just Capitalism at work. It's nobody's fault. The system is set up for players to maximize their profits. The theory says that when all the players profit, everybody becomes rich and happy and it serves the greater good. Nobody nominated the cable news companies to be honest referees in this game. They only did their job and did what their shareholders expect of them which is to be profitable. They correctly estimated that covering Trump is the right way to maximize profits. The cable companies business is entertainment, not pursuing some higher purpose.
Too bad the American people were so easily duped in confusing all they saw on TV as "news". There is a saying that if at a card game you don't know who's the sucker, it is probably you.
Gabi, perhaps you meant your comment to be flip or edgy, but it's not-- it is wrong. Capitalism does NOT happen in a vacuum. IE: Public pressure is leading Coca Cola and other soda mfrs to seek other products to sell, as their unhealthy and sugary drinks decline in sales.IE: Government action plus public pressure has made smokers in the US pariahs, and shrunk the cigarette business. Other Examples abound. Nobody of any intelligence EVER said the media could be free range delivery boys. However-- Reagan with his ridiculous demonization of government evolved to the evisceration (and rebublicanization) of the FCC. It's charter is certainly not profits above all else for industry participants. We the People own the airwaves, and the fact that they are now unregulated does not mean that's the way "the system is set up." I agree with you that Americans "were easily duped." That's exactly why we must return to media regulation. Or, as a true cynic would argue--it is now too late.
I am not wrong. Just look at "Exhibit A". Where was the FCC to regulate the airwaves? Where was the public pressure to impact the decision makers at the cable news? These days anybody trying to run on a program of more regulations will find himself trailing Jill Stein. This is reality.
I remember watching "The Apprentice" and thinking "Donald Trump is the worst example of leadership I have ever seen! His lack of leadership skills could fill a textbook on what not to do as a leader!" However, as Mr. Douthat writes in the article, the American public was sold a bill of goods that Trump was the most successful and savvy businessman ever! And then...CNN's proximity to Trump tower no doubt made it so convenient for Trump to drop in for more free advertising during the election. I would love to know the dollar amount of free airtime that Trump got during 2016. You could not turn on a news program where Trump was not the main topic of discussion. We heard about Trump 24/7...good, bad, or indifferent. Trump, Trump, Trump...I think a lot of people thought there was no other option but Trump. After all, the news media was certainly giving him coverage. And the only type of news we ever heard about Hillary was negative. Yes, the news media has to accept they were culpable for electing one of the biggest dopes in history!
46
When Jesus said "by faith alone shall ye be saved." he meant the faith that allows one to believe in a billion year old world and a belief in "we the people". Those that choose to believe ancient allegory instead of science are the ones who demonstrate little faith.
Liberals have believed for too long there is a link between faith and dogma when in fact dogma is the enemy of real faith.
1
What is the point of believing anything that lacks credible substantiation and practical utility?
1
I agree. One quibble, there is no belief in science, there is research, knowledge and understanding, but no closed doors. Belief is final, knowledge is under constant review.
1
Steve,
Thank you.
The late Tom Harpur a great Canadian theologian and writer often said allegory is sometimes the purveyor of the greatest truth.
The men who wrote your founding documents, men like Jefferson who was a scientist and plant breeder studied the bible for its allegorical truth while believing that if there was any historical truth it was totally accidental.
Jefferson was a man of tremendous faith. He believed in a nation without aristocracy and without the chosen of a deity. He believed in the people and their innate ability to make decisions that would create a great nation.
Conservatives have foisted upon us another Orwellian word. People of faith in the USA are in fact people of little if any faith. Their faith is prescribed not internal.
This is right on.
We have a President and Congress that has shown no fiscal responsibility. A Congress that has ignored Senator Gillibrands reforms regarding sexual harassment. A President and Congress that continues to cave in to the NRA. A President that insists on a trade war, insults our neighbors. There must be other news stories that deserve coverage.
What does the Press want to talk about? Stormy Daniels! Give me a break. The Press needs to stop engaging in voyeurism and start reporting the news to the American People.
George Orwell warned us about privacy in "1984".
1
Absolutly true. Well put.
More backward reasoning. The gullibility and ignorance of The Apprentice fan base was made possible by the preceding two decades of GOP spin and Fox News lies. Cambridge Analytica knew it, even if you don’t.
2
"The depth and breadth of Trump skepticism among right-wing pundits was a pretty solid indicator of his unfitness for high office."
This one sentence is incredible. Just think about it for a second. It disqualifies the whole article.
1
Douthat is right about Trump and television, but when he starts with the generalized "liberal establishment" fixation it distracts from his argument about Trump being elected because he was a reality TV star.
Is no one in the "conservative establishment" concerned about the issues over Facebook and social media? It's just as easy to say that the conservative establishment is inappropriately quiet because they still think they can assert some control over Trump (Paul Ryan, for example).
The manipulation of social media is a valid concern regardless of politics.
3
Users of Mt. Dew's website voted for the best name for a new flavor. The second-most popular name was "Gushing Granny." The top name was something I refuse to write.
Perhaps Trump is the Gushing Granny of candidates. People often complain about the system being broken or rigged. This happens on both sides of the aisle. Dems were more pragmatic in flirting with Sanders. Republicans expressed their frustrations by voting for Gushing Granny.
1
Without his reality TV shows, Trump almost certainly would not have been elected president. How did Schwarzenegger get elected Governor of California, except on the basis of his celebrity?
This election was such a fluke that many factors could have been a tipping point. The assumption that Hillary would win which led Comey to his public announcements and MSM to focus on the private server issue. All the free air time Trump got. A contentious Democratic primary.
And still, how Cambridge Analytical attempts to swing elections worldwide by deceptive means is a subject that needs thorough investigation.
1
The "always Trump tsunami" was evident in all media, including this newspaper and others. Every Trump outrage was above the fold news.
Our problem is we don't have a responsible or independent news media any more. In the 'corporatizing' of our media the mission is focused on generating investor profits. (Didn't the CBS exec say we hate the guy, but we love ratings?) This has resulted in sensation over sense, sound bite over explanation, opinion over fact, and celebrity over content.
Television news was a powerful tool for truth, prior to the abolition of the fairness doctrine, and allowing Cable TV news providers not to abide by the standards of broadcasters.
This corporatizing of our media was enabled by laws allowing multiple media ownership. Gone are independent media providers in our cities and towns, now there is cross-media ownership, and foreign media ownership. None of which serves the purpose of press freedom and an informed electorate.
Finger pointing within the media doesn't solve anything, even though finger pointing along with a corrupted media put Putin's tool in the White House.
1
There is a lot of truth to the cynicism of old media propping up Trump for ratings, but the problem with most NYT columns is that they always set up a structuralist dicotomy of x vs. y. X is new media and Y is old. Trump knew he could get free Y so he put all of his campaign money into X. That doesn’t mean one is more important than the other. If anything, X is much better positioned than Y to microtarget individuals because of the interactive nature of the medium.
That’s why it’s important to impose hard regulation on this interactive flow of data from the many to the few. Instead we need data to flow from the few to the many.
1
How do you firm up the differentiation between fake news, true news, and opinion presented as news?
How do you make Americans interested in searching out the "truth", rather than accepting the news feed being presented to them via social media algorithms that are designed to keep them engaged , rather than informed?
The American appetite for reality TV that makes us observers and not participants seems to be successfully exploited by present-day media.
Watching a train wreck has historically been a ratings trove.
Junk food probably outsells healthy foods by a large margin, (my guess).
Turning this intellectual downturn toward the upside, I would surmise, finally comes down to education.
IMO, The USA must funnel money into better education, starting yesterday.
Teaching critical thinking skills in the elementary schools and beyond would hopefully stem the decline in factual research we are observing.
Teaching younger students how to verify facts and rule out lies isn't all that difficult.
Unfortunately, the need to increase skepticism in youngsters at an early age seems paramount.
It's sad to have to say goodbye to youth naivete as a gift they should enjoy. But, in order to kill the downward trend of youth buying into reality TV as "reality", opening their eyes a bit earlier may be necessary.
The same can be said for the disassembly of present day social media information silos.
Skepticism of what is presented on social media news feeds should be encouraged, as I see it.
1
First we need to teach the Congress that it lacks authority to respect any faith-based beliefs when legislating.
1
Stating the obvious here, with a whole lotta words. One or two sentences would have sufficed.
One can spare oneself many idle words by going straight to the weakest link of any argument.
No Ross Douthat, Trump lost the popular vote with more media followers voting for his rival. Just give up the stupid theory that some silly reason influenced the voters other than their own pocket books. Americans are not stupid. They are smarter than you give them credit for how they should vote. Just because all Americans did not vote the way Ross or the New York Times wanted them to vote does not make them "deplorable" or "submissive to their spouses"
2
Um, both . . .and, not either . . . or?
1
The media gave so much airtime to Mr Trump because they saw a chance to make this 'idiotic' reality-TV star the poster-boy for the Republican Party. A perfect tactic: he had no chance to beat the anointed 'first woman president.' This incredible pomposity blew up in their faces. Yet, the lesson has not been learned. Daily, unceasingly, Mr Trump is bashed at a level that can only end, incredibly, with him becoming a sympathetic figure. "Fascist" "Racist" "Nazi" "Russian Apparatchik" "End of democracy" - he represents none of those things. Flawed - you bet. Cringe-worthy - nearly every day. Bombastic - embarrassingly so. This is what it feels like to have the country pulled back to a centrist position.
Well I’ve always liked some of Ross Douhat’s columns but this one.... really, Ross, blaming Trump on CNN and NBC? Nary a word on Fox News, the enabler in chief? Come on! Ironic —or intentional? — it mes out the same day a top conservative Fox commentator resigns and calls the News network a “propaganda machine?
1
Doesn't the Times count? It was rare that the Times had fewer than 4 or 5 articles about Trump on the front page during the election. Most of them not very news worthy. Maybe print media is not as powerful as it once was but it still counts for something and Trump got a lot of free publicity from your paper. SAD!
2
Poor victimized conservatives. No mention that the right has its own captive propaganda newtwork, Fox?
3
"Where did so many people originally get the idea that Trump was the right guy to fix our manifestly broken government? "
From the same people who touted Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan & Bush2, columnists like Douthat, Brooks, et al. Trump is simply the result of 50 years of Republican/conservative policies, programs and propaganda designed to return and protect America to its "glory" years of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
1
Umm,
While you may be spot on with 'The Apprentice as a prelude' angle, this is not a binary issue.
TV or FB.
Remember...
"The medium is the message"
Apply in examining the arc of the election, this administration, all participants and the outcomes.
There is a difference between ratings and truths. We all had forgotten about 'truth', there is only one rating for it, 100%. All the polls don't even come close to what 'truth' means. We need to take this as a lesson; poll numbers are not truth and it behooves everyone to find it for themselves instead of blindly following numbers that don't mean much by itself. And the news media needs to do a better job of bring out the truth instead of afterwards like we are doing now!
It is not either/or. The election was decided by a tiny margin in a few states.
Yes, what the mainstream media did was unforgivable.
(I remember trying to find coverage of a Clinton rally and instead seeing a CNN reporter standing in a room telling us that Trump would be speaking "soon" (not for an hour as it turned out as we kept looking back to see whether they might have switched to the Clinton speech))
But for those who still have any doubt that the Russian/Mercer-Bannon-Cambridge Analytica/Trump social media operation was decisive,
watch the British hidden camera interview with CambridgeAnalytica:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy-9iciNF1A&feature=youtu.be&wpm...
2
One day Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were giving a speech to an electoral rally. Bernie Sanders was in time. Donald Trump was late. And CNN was at both places. Instead of showing the speech of Sanders to their viewers they were showing the empty stage. Why they did not showed the speech of Sanders? The Daily Show had fun with that, believe me. Perfect exemple of entertainment winning over politics.
3
Kris Kobach got Trump elected, and anyone who looks at the data will see how obvious that is. The Crosscheck system, designed by Kobach and used in 27 states, wrongfully and outrageously purged enough valid ballots to tilt the result in at least three key states. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of valid ballots which were eliminated. This would explain the unsettling divergence between the exit polls, which pointed to a Hillary win, and the final counts in these states, which didn't reconcile. Even the CIA relies upon exit polls to determine election fraud in other countries. We didn't need Russian trolls, social media scams, or Trump's familiarity with television to get him elected. We had Kris Kobach. And no one is looking at this story. The Crosscheck system is still in use in most states.
1
Two things: The "Trumpian take-over of the GOP" was caused by the GOP's own decades long appeal to white paranoia, bigotry and resentment. It was easy, but set an avalanche in motion that overwhelmed the party bosses who lost control of the nomination process. They wanted Jeb but the new republican base, ignorant and angry, would have none of it.
The election of Trump is in no way a reaction to the policy choices of Obama, but surely it is in part a reaction to eight years of republican smears and distortions aimed at Obama, and fed by an undercurrent of racial animosity. White people who couldn't figure out how to thrive despite centuries of opportunity couldn't bear the thought of a half-black president who epitomized success, and the GOP bosses, to their infinite and everlasting shame, milked it for all it was worth. They created Trump.
4
Dear NYT, tweets are not news! Deal with it!
Mr. Douthat, everything you write here is also true of your employer. Why not include the NYT in your critique?
1
This conversation reminds of the movie Network with Faye Dunaway. As educated open minded humanists, we're supposed to know that reality tv means fake. the Trump base knows this in their own way, though they take his side because of their resentment towards sophisticated liberals who they're convinced look down on them. The networks know how to keep both sides enthralled with their drive for ratings.
What concerns me is that even the supposedly more reality based news programs with much higher information voters than Fox News, are now also inevitably taking on aspects of reality tv. I was watching Joe diGenova's spiel on MSNBC about Trump being framed by the secret society. Joe looks like a perfect fit for the role of Vito Corleone's lead attorney, but they have to present this as serious news because it's now coming from the presidents new lawyer!
1
It is frustrating to me when conservative pundits imply that liberal attitudes are all about loyalty to the team. (For one thing, liberals aren't nearly as loyal as conservatives, hence Hillary's "loss.") Did the Trump campaign simply follow Obama's lead in using the Internet to get votes? Perhaps. But the Obama campaign was not tainted with scandals involving our country's enemies or blocking the right to vote or Nazi sympathizers or shady finances or sexual misconduct or... well, anything. As is often said about many things, technology can be a force for good or evil. I think it's clear which of these two men is which – and not simply because of a D or R next to the name.
3
It was the racism, misogyny, and bigotry of a goodly number of white folks that gave us President Trump. Can we just say that? Nothing else would have worked--not the 24-7 free media coverage, nor the "psychographic" electoral tactics, nor the gross dysfunction of US politics in the modern era. Yes, each of those things on their own is a serious problem and I hope we address them. But in the end, Trump's team knew they only needed to turn on that switch of fear and resentment that lurks in the heart of so many of our citizens (A reminder: trump began with birtherism) . They've been conditioned for it by a generation of so-called conservative politicians, and our very fine president just had to make that appeal to his very fine supporters.
3
The analysis in the op-ed and in the comments is all well and good, but it seems to me to be missing the point.
The reason Trump is president is because he bypassed policy, reason, common sense, and good manners to go straight for the emotions. He offered, in the simplest language of any president, a story that fed citizen's fears and hopes. The story was the classic Us versus Them tale, which was spawned out of tribalism (also primarily emotional) and feeds it still.
Our error is in believing that our brains are in more control of our thoughts and behavior than our emotions. Our brains are actually quite adept at cloaking emotional appeals and responses as "reasoned" when they are anything but.
1
I have seen zero minutes of “The Apprentice”. Hillary lost because she is unhealthy. She lost my tentative vote when I saw her barely able to lift her feet trying to walk to her black Suburban after that 9/11 ceremony, which we all saw, on network television. She cemented my decision when she lied about it with the shifting excuses and explanations and her unsteady gait on national TV at a debate a few days later.
Then there was her email server in the basement of her house which held classified government information, and her lame excuses and ignorance of government security regulations, and her arrogance which told her to ignore executive order mandates to take annual security training while Secretary of State. And the lack of discipline among her staff that allowed classified information to find its way onto Anthony Weiner's laptop computer.
Trump was her opposing candidate. He won. Thank God almighty, and Jesus too, and Facebook, and the Russians.
1
No, Ross. "Television" didn't do it. It was a swath of the American voters rendered stupefied, furious, terrified and willing to believe the biggest liar who ever sought the office. There wasn't a television punching the ballots in any voting booth anywhere in the entire country. It was people. People whose rage pushed aside reason. They listen to the right-wing media that drives deliberation out. You weren't the loudest voice in the poison choir, admittedly, but please...don't deny singing your part.
2
“Television is by nature the dominator drug par excellence. Control of content, uniformity of content, repeatability of content make it inevitably a tool of coercion, brainwashing, and manipulation.”
-- Terence McKenna
The passive programing of television negates the development of critical skills necessary to survive in the modern world. In fact, television encourages the opposite - indulgence of the reptile brain (revenge movies) and emotional agreement and easy satisfaction with negative views that support your tribe's biases.
One fails to question and develop alternative understanding and explanations which lead to creative problem-solving. After TV is finished with you, you're ripe for social media.
1
What made this unqualified charlatan president was a combination of things.
Angry old white people who think the world is changing around them and they don't like it (guess what, it is still changing, and you are still stuck)
Purists who found themselves ready to give our country to a madman to prove themselves right and pure.
People of color decided that Hillary was not Barrack and never would be, and somehow thought she was the same as the madman, so their apathy made them not vote. (Do you see the difference now)
Manipulation of the registration process to vote by the GOP, narrowing of the opportunity to vote for people likely to vote for Hillary and gerrymandering of the entire system in their favor.
The Electoral College System that should have been thrown out decades ago for a system that makes sense, one vote for each citizen and the majority wins.
Getting rid of the archaic rule of voting on a Tuesday which has not made sense since a time when farmers were the majority and most Americans lived in rural areas.
Seeing the madman on television SHOULD have made people realize his utter inadequacy for the office of President, that is if they had any rational thought process, any duty to country over party, or any moral standards. What it shows me is that many GOP voters have none of the above. They are racists, hypocrites and only concerned with controlling women's bodies and their wallets.
3
Douthat's point that Pres. Trump was helped immensely by accessing free TV coverage is lessened by his self promoting finger-pointing, which everybody other than Trump supporters is incessantly engaged in, most of which is nonsensical and destructive.
They don't call TV the "boob tube" and the "idiot box" for nothing.
2
Why did the media, especially CNN, give Trump so much free coverage?
There were the many times when cameras trained on an empty podium,
or a plane on the runway waiting for Trump, while the real people's candidate,
Bernie Sanders, was giving a speech to hundreds or thousands who stood in
line waiting to hear and seem him in person. People were catching on to Sanders in spite of lack of media. It's just laughable to see the
weeping in the media these days, and to remember the way they treated
the Sanders campaign, but we are supposed to forget, right.
1
I have always believed the media was largely responsible for winning Trump the election. The ratings race for advertising dollars is what drives the media. Trump was privy to the ratings game from doing his hit television show The Apprentice at NBC. The media created a huge hype from the beginning. When he announced he was running the media treated him like a circus act. HRC got velvet gloves and prepared questioneds. How all this happened and who is responsible is still to be determined. However, there is no disputing the fact that Trump was the top / leading story almost every evening on the national news for the entire year leading up to the election. Often the leading soundbite was " Your Not Going To Believe What He Said Now" Ms. Clinton was reduced to a even smaller sound bite for her reaction to what ever crazy thing was reported that day. The only time T was not the lead story was if there was a big disaster ...that goes for this paper as well.
You could easily go as far to say that Trump manipulated and used the media without them even realizing they were being used. I also think an argument could also be easily made that the media is addicted to Trump and the rating dollars it creates for them.
I used to enjoy watching the evening news...these days I rarely tune in. The story is OLD NEWS. I've already heard it for what feels this a thousand times.
1
If Trump was a more insidious or tricky person, this might be a conversation worth having. In reality, though, it doesn't matter where anyone of any voting age was exposed to Trump's campaign. Trump's lies operate at the same level of sophistication as someone selling $5 Rolex watches. What difference does it make whether one hears such a con through the radio, TV or the internet?
If we're going to talk about scapegoating someone, the ugly truth is that the two major parties, the voters, and the electoral college were given a very simple stress test and failed miserably. Democratic institutions are designed to prevent people like Trump from S-E-I-Z-I-N-G power. The ability of those institutions to prevent the population from WILLINGLY subjecting themselves to the likes of Trump is questionable.
1
If we are too stupid and self centered to be aware of what is going on right under our noses, every link in the chains being forged will bind our children and theirs to the astronomical debt being incurred. While this expensive hair shirt is undeserved it will be worn by them throughout their lives.
I am not interested in handing down this legacy any more than the kids who are being legally forced to accept this debt. Anyone who thinks they are taking to the streets soley in protest of their friend's deaths is in for a rude shock.
These young men and women know they are being cheated and victimized by the so called adults in the room whose objective is to enrich themselves and gold plate their enclaves.
It is disgusting that men such as Mssrs Trump, Pence, McConnell and Ryan are accepted as leaders when in fact they are betraying every real value instilled in all Americans.
If our governance was based on merit and skill the list of people who hold elected office with the intent of helping our nation would not fill the page of a small notebook with few representatives in either party qualifying as candidates let alone elected to enact our laws.
Our so called Democracy is a fiction spun by those seeking office which invariably includes centuries of myth carried in their shuttles and woven into their imaginary tapestry.
The Emperor is not the only one sitting unclothed behind his desk.
1
I have no idea what Ross Duthat is talking about. Trump had all the right to be on the Apprentice or whatever, and most of TV is junk anyway. The real issues are other: the lying and misinformation mostly present on the Right (see Fox, Breitbart etc.), and the unlawful harvest of private data by Cambridge Analytica. What is needed is legislation to protect the integrity of the News system and to protect Privacy.
1
I agree, Ross, no one who voted Trump should have anyone or anything to blame for their sheer stupidity. Trump has been a known-known for we New Yorkers for decades. The guy's a con man extraordinaire. But he's so over the top he's been a laughingstock for so long there was no reason to fear he'd ever get any traction running for president, even if he ran in the Stupid Party. Though Republicans have held the Stupid Party moniker for quite some time, we Dems figured even they would never stoop so low, or be fooled by Trump's obviously bloviating malarkey. They'd eventually see right through this Joker, and jettison him for at least a Republican who wasn't a complete fraud.
And so, rank and file Republicans, Independents, and Democrats who voted Bernie and then either did not show up for Hillary, or worse, voted Trump, put this charlatan within Electoral College range, and thus, the presidency. The results of the 2016 election should not have been close. Not even close. It should have been a landslide for Hillary. Yes, a landslide. What this points out in glaring detail is how much the right-wing propaganda machine has brainwashed even Liberals and Dems into making Hillary the second most despised candidate in the '16 contest.
No American who voted Trump, or hated Hillary and refused to stop Trump by voting for her, has any excuse. H.L. Mencken said it best, many moons ago, "Never underestimate the ignorance of the American people".
DD
Manhattan
3
A sad commentary (sad but true) on our society, and why didn't these cable news networks shine the light on Trump's nefarious business dealings along with his many legal entanglements and lawsuits? That would have been newsworthy and taken some of the steam out of his momentum. Again it seems ratings take precedence over any semblance of truth. Now it's after the fact, but at least the trend has turned in the direction of exposing Trump for what he truly is--an incompetent and corrupt charlatan; the only part of "fake news" that's fake is Trump himself!
1
Ross, you're dumbing down the story into a simplistic either-or and missing the big picture. Data mining through FB was a resource for crafting a message ('Crooked Hillary' was established as a slogan, not by trump but by the brainiacs at CA) which was then amplified by a combination of outlets, both on the air (as if we weren't already aware of that!) and social media (and FB, Twitter etc. was the battleground on which tribes were formed and solidified, and the onslaught got personal).
When you isolate FB as the 'bad guy' you trivialize the whole dynamic and miss it at the same time.
Follow the money. Look at who was hired and who was spending the money. trump himself, who will likely puff up at how much credit you give him for ruling the media and dominating the headlines, is himself a pawn.
The president himself watches the morning news to find out what the president is doing, and what his next tweet should be.
The question is not simply about how the data was obtained (from FB), or how it was used on FB itself. The question is who came together to implement the scheme, which includes Fox, FB etc., enough that everyone fell in step. Those are the questions that Mueller is asking.
Yeah, teevee was a more powerful echo chamber. But don't miss the big picture. In trivializing this into an either-or piece of dithering, you're enabling those behind this heist of American democracy.
Sit down and think it through again.
1
I personally don't watch the news, but the amount of hate the all tolerant left news organization displayed against Trump all the time told me he was the right man for the job. Not one day goes by now where these leftist bias news organization spread so much hate. Even if he wasn't doing well I'd vote for him again in 3 years. I use to not be able to stand Trump. He was not my pick in the primary election and if it wasn't for all the hate I saw after my pick dropped out I would have not voted again. Thank you NYT and all the other leftist news organizations for keeping me on the track.
Ross , they all had a part in it along with the media , ( online , TV or print , including the NYTs) constant badgering and showing H.C. in a negative light , painting her as a passe , old lady stumbling, damaged dynastic politician , dragging out her husband's indiscretions , but overlooking Trump's which were far worse . This created the perfect storm and Trump became President with a little help from all of you and his cheating ways .
Has Mr. Douhat no shame? Has he ever heard of the words "both" or "all"? And, can he please stop with the "liberal establishment fixation" business? Who exactly is the so-called liberal establishment and what "fixation" do they have on anything? I think who he is referring to can be better termed "citizens who care about laws and constitution".
Sure our mainstream TV media was complicit in promoting a person who is clearly a lunatic. They were happy to profit and were exceptionally untalented in explaining what was and still is going on. They gave up on news and brought in the bloviators. They were terrified of making a mistake. They let liars like Conway and Huckabee go on and on without a filter. They ask softball questions of politicians and are horrid about redirecting follow up.
But that does no let Facebook get away with what they did. They were more than complicit as well. And in no way does Douhat convince me or anyone else that they don't share blame or that they did not help throw this election. We can argue about which was more important, but the answer is obviously both.
And then there is Trump, who is obviously a criminal, on TV and on the internet. Who speaks, acts and lies in ways that cross lines that no politician should ever cross. What I don't get why Douhat can't see that both media and the internet are to blame, and I certainly don't see why he has to try to lead us away from what should be true wrath at this "president" criminal.
1
Trump is almost beside the point. So much media coverage of Republicans is negative. Do you think that any of the other contenders for the Republican nomination if elected President would be treated much differently?
Ross, please quit being so “liberal” with the terms “liberal establishment” & “liberalism”. People are more complex and nuanced than you think, and vote that way. A “liberal” is somewhat who is not in an “establishment”, and is not “established” forever in any view, and will look at and weigh all sides of an issue in complete context before making a judgement. That’s why judges should be “liberal judges”. You can’t reach a destination by sailing on a starboard or port tack forever, nor fly a helicopter without it being balanced. The person who is “liberal” minded knows the morphology of this philosophy.
Nobody is too blame directly for Trump but Trump voters.
4
Sing it, sister!
I don’t usually agree with Ross but I think he’s spot-on in this piece. Trump…the candidate from FOX was fluffed and featured incessantly by virtually all news media outlets. Does anyone remember Huffington Post’s short-lived effort to only cover Trump in the Entertainment Section? As I read every scrap of coverage about Cambridge Analytical I haven’t s read of a single example of a voter who was “turned” by its algorithms…or even how that might work.
Meanwhile virtually anyone you ask at work can tell you of a relative or friend who (a) is a Fox News devotee…(b) voted for Trump and (c) really believes that the biggest threats to America are illegal aliens, resettled Muslim refugees and political correctness. Oh…and yeah…Obama was not born in the USA....all served up by Fox. Fine and jail Cambridge Analytics and Facebook for any lawbreaking but don’t oversell their efficacy…which is exactly what they themselves appear to have been doing, at least in my opinion.
During the primaries and the campaign, executives at CNN and other media outlets opposed to Trump should have issued a memo. "I never want to see him on our TV channel and I never want to hear his name spoken. Not once. Not even if he shoots someone on 5th avenue. PERIOD! !!!!!
He never would have gotten past the first primary. Jeb! might be our President.
Media as a whole is responsible for the Accidental President. Trump made headlines and headlines sell. In other words, NYT ain't no non-profit either.
Looking beyond the sanctimonious smoke and mirrors, I call out the NYT for being just as complicit as TV news media in terms of enabling the false equivalence between Trump and Clinton ethical misconduct.
I blame NYT for the Accidental President even more than Fox and Friends, because the latter is so obviously the voice of Ugly America, with whom we nonetheless split the bill for this great republic of ours.
Yes, the "Trump reality show" hacked the TV media to get elected. But before that, Fox News hacked news. The "fake news station", Fox News, hacked conservatives and the Republican party.
You, Mr. Douthat, have been hacked!
Ross -the real issue is not how the mainstream media gave trump free airtime, did not criticize his blatantly racist comments, and did not point out his lack of leadership.
No, that is not the issue today.
The issue is that it is still continuing today.
Stop printing, talking about, and publicizing his Twitter rants.
Don’t feed the monster and he will wither away.
Call him a racist when he makes racists comments.
Call out his supporters for being racist if they support a racist.
Publicly push for him to resign for the good of the country.
1
This essay was a statement of the obvious, yet Mr. Douthat buried the lede. Yes, TV news was still a prime driver of polarization in the 2016 election campaign, but the key to Trump’s cynical and dishonest manipulation of TV coverage was his weaponization of Twitter.
Supporting roles were played by other cross-media players from Facebook to Fox, talk radio and Breitbart. These served a constant feast of red meat directly to the conservative “base” to deepen and spread their fear and outrage, and build the cult of Trump.
The important thing to recognize is not which medium is most to “blame” for the toxic results — it’s to understand that we are now captive to a completely new ecosystem of news dissemination, one that allows “fake news” to easily metastasize. The traditional, curated news media is reactive and therefore easily sucked in to coverage of every outrageous tweet or wacky conspiracy theory that is freely flung out on social media, unencumbered by facts or logic.
I’m sick to death of hearing the “mainstream media” demonized. Yes, they’ve fallen for Trump’s dirty tricks and should be thinking hard about how to stop being misused as an echo chamber. This requires a serious examination of how to fulfill the intent of the First Amendment in today’s tangled and virtually unregulated media environment.
It won’t be easy, but it’s our only hope for restoring respect for truth in our social discourse.
"late-Obama-era-liberalism". Love that phrase Mr. D. Guess you've never heard of Peter Thiel? He'd be one of those tech barons on your side of the fence.
1
Let us not forget that print media (and yes, I'm pointing the finger at YOU, NYT) blasted front page after front page updates on trump appearances, movements, statements, tweets, etc. Day after day for months before the election, the NYT and other "respected" print media advertised trump to the voting public. It was almost impossible to pick up any newspaper and NOT see trump on the front page. So, yes, TV and social media played their ugly part in this, but let us not ignore the power of print for many Americans. And you are all STILL at it, NYT, etc. Everyday trump's latest escapade, bad choices, ugly and ignorant remarks are faithfully reported. Personally, I'd be very happy if newsprint could ignore trump for a week. We'd all be a lot more informed about other, really important issues and less sick to our stomachs about the latest trump trash and trivia. The least you could do is relegate him to Page 2 or 3. Please.
No Ross, it was not the media that made Trump president, it was the Electoral College. Surely you remember that Hillary Clinton garnered 3 million more votes.
1
Physician - Heal thyself (Luke 4:23)
Herein we have a NYTimes columnist correctly chastising TV news for going All Trump All The Time for ratings.
Well, New York Times, Heal Thyself.
Every day, 'above the fold' several stories.
A world full of news, but US news media, beginning with ___America's Newspaper of Record___
is acting as if Trump is The Story today and every day in the foreseeable future. Front Page, Op Ed,, US, Politics, and on and on.
'There is no such thing as bad publicity', and Trump loves you for all the ink.
3
I CONGRATULATE ROSS For an excellent column, broad in its sweep and deep in its thoughts. If I look for a particular node in the maelstrom that has become our media universe, it is the innocence of the pioneers of social media, such as Zuckerberg, who believed that the Internet was a place where people would, left to their own devices, naturally use its terrible power to good purpose. Like the "free market." Zuckerberg may or may not have had those on his team who warned him that unlimited power attracts people whose goal is to monopolize that power and polarize audiences. I hope that someone will sit down with him and talk about shifting paradigms. Now it is his onus to think about how to transform facebook, for starters, so that those who use its power for evil will be prevented from taking advantage of those naive enough to believe that the Internet will, left to its own devices, serve as a positive resource. As with radioactivity, the Internet can be used for good purposes such as generating electricity and medical treatments. Or for evil, by destroying the Earth. I don't know whether facebook is more or less powerful than atomic weapons, but given the fact that Trump has his itchy grubby little paws on the NOO KYUH LER buttons, I'd say that the Internet's power is not to be underestimated.
1
While I agree with almost everything you wrote here, I believe you missed the salient point on the matter of Trump's "win" in the election. Clinton garnered a plurality of almost 3 million votes, no matter what he and Kris Koback of Kansas say. Trump won in the electoral college for reasons that go back as far as the Federalist Papers and Alexander Hamilton, and repose squarely on Hillary Clinton and her strategists more recently. The only thing Trump won was the electoral college vote, which occurred in December 2016. He won nothing in November. If you read numbers 62, 63 and 68 of The Federalist, you see how perverse the result of the December vote was. The electoral college was intended to prevent things like Trump's presidency. Publius, the nom de plume of Hamilton, Madison and Jay, was just a straw man for three colonial plutocrats trying to keep the American people from mucking it all up with a true democracy. Look at the mess they made.
Well, it was the media generally. First the media treated Trump as a sideshow spectacle: great for readership and viewership. Then the media treated him as a fundamentally unthreatening: fascinating but no worries on election day. Then, late Tuesday night crept into our living rooms, the full horror of the state totals came in, and the media had given Trump billions in free publicity.
1
Wholly disagree with the premise because the viewership for CNN and Fox is negligible and the idea that Facebook posts swayed the election is risable. Instead of blaming those in the media for becoming democratic partisans in the election and for losing their objectivity years before when the second Bush won the election and Obama ran for president despite having no experience and numerous flaws, Douthot gives credit to a guy who still can't get out of his own way. Give me a break.
1
I share the same feelings as Ross Douthat about Facebook and their invasiveness. But giving Facebook and almost all the other tools we use to enhance our lives via the internet demand the same access. So far, only Facebook has been so irresponsible - but there are other shoes to drop, methinks.
It is interesting that Donald J. Trump has worked hard to condition his enablers and 95% (ers) to view the legitimate media as fake news and, more dangerously, enemies of the State. Were it not for CNN covering his fledgling campaign back in 2015, Trump would have vanished from the landscape and the global community would have viewed him as another TV personality attempting to remain relevant.
CNN kept him in the news with reports on his gatherings before they became rallies. Most of the legitimate media gave him credence from time to time but Far Right venues, including FOX News, ignored him until it became clear he may be a contender. Then, they pushed the legitimate press out of the way and ran with it. CNN and the remainder of the legitimate press did their jobs; reported what they saw and heard from Trump and his supporters. That's where it went sour. The truth and facts showed the real Trump not the snake oil guy fawned upon by FOX. Instant enemy. However, the damage by venues such as CNN had taken root and the Far Right media, more than social media, carried him to victory.
The main-stream media mostly delegitimized themselves, via their participation in the CIA's Operation Mockingbird, allowing CIA-paid assets to plant stories and shape coverage; covering up anything that contradicted the Warren Commission (when it is now acknowledged, even by the US Government, that the CIA and FBI both lied to the Warren Commission and again to the House Select Committee on Assassinations).
They did the same in the run-up to the Iraq War, willingly allowing the Bush administration to bully them about "national security." For example, at the Bush administration's request, the NYT themselves purposefully sat on a story in the summer and fall of 2004 about the Bush administration's illegal secret warrantless wiretapping and mass surveillance, something that could have changed the 2004 election.
The main-stream media willingly have acted as our own version of Pravda for far too many years. We may not like the character or policies of the messenger but it does not mean the message is not true. Large grain of truth in what Trump says about the "fake news" media.
1
OTOH, imagine the outcry from Ross's cohort of old, white TV watchers had their preferred news conduits not broadcast the unhinged utterances of their reality-TV hero. This country will need a long Silkwood shower once Trump gets done with sullying everything he touches.
How many CNN and MSNBC viewers voted for the donald?
CNN was on at a rest stop on Rte 95 where my kids, ages 14 and 17, and I were watching. The donald was on. We stood there and I said to them - watch, this is how an authoritarian takes over. and it can happen here. They got it. The crowds the donald was engaging did not.
Nor did that couple who sat silently, eating their food, slowly moving their heads to the screen while I said that, and then slowly moved back to their sandwiches. It was scary.
2
One would think that anyone paying attention to Trump’s tweets and rambling, incoherent speeches would have concluded that he was manifestly unqualied to be President of the United States. I concluded that Trump voters for the most part followed Fox News rather than MSM. To compare MSM coverage to Fox News is a false equivalency. MSM reported on Trump tweets and speeches and called them ridiculous for the most part while Fox News beat the drum for prosecuting Clinton and denegrating Obama. My concern with the MSM coverage of the campaigns was and is that the coverage of Clinton left the uninformed with the impression that Trump and Clinton were equally bad candidates. History will be unkind to all aspects of this episode.
2
This analysis is much appreciated for fleshing out key media processes that unfolded glaringly in front of most viewers of daily news reporting and yet, indeed, poorly realized and understood in terms of underlying significance and eventual consequences. And comforting to find Douthat on common grounds with Pinker when it comes to the harmful and very acute consequences of human negativity bias as elaborated in "Enlightenment Now". For a summary see:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/17/steven-pinker-medi...
Reagan did many awful things, and some good things, but for someone who so profoundly believe in democracy, he sure did rip a huge hole in our national fabric by repealing the Fairness Doctrine. Possibly, in retrospect, the most dangerous thing he did. Democracies need genuinely fair, balanced news outlets for them to continue to flourish, not entertainment divisions stoking rage and resentment.
3
Totally agree with you about Facebook. I suspended my membership over a year ago. They won't let you quit totally, by the way, which ought to be illegal.
3
Yes, but putting aside the NY Times 2013 magazine article that discussed 2012 Obama campaign's similar use of data-harvesting, profiling and Facebook mining (with little concern); and putting aside fact that it was Democrat Larry Summers (as Harvard President) who refused to sanction Zuckerberg for stealing Facebook from the Winklevoss twins and instead enabled its creation, going so far as to install his mentee Sheryl Sandberg there - increased skepticism and possibly even dismantling of Facebook and break-up of Google would be a very positive result of the main-stream media's Trump Derangement Syndrome. There have been a minority of skeptics who have refused to embrace the main-stream media's tech-utopianism and it appears the bicoastal elites are finally starting to catch up.
2
The key impact of Cambridge Analytica FB work and Russian FB work—eerily similar by the way—was discouraging groups in Swing States from voting, specifically for Hillary. Posts focused on her dishonesty and amplified tropes that were also coming from mainstream media. All the tropes were supported by the actions of the FBI with the Comey letter. Personally, I think those actions were more powerful than Wall-to-Wall Trump on cable TV because the discouraged voters were generally younger voters who got their news from social media.
1
Wow! One of the best, most concise analyses of the presidential campaign and the role of old and new media. Politics is show biz, marketing and advertizing and so is "the news."
I applaud this column, but Mr. Douthat doesn't stress the networks blatant, irresponsible profiteering from the so-called debates. In the primary debates, they always put Trump in the center of the line-up, under the feeble excuse that he was polling higher than the others. Apparently, in their contempt for the audience, they thought we were too stupid to see the circularity of that explanation. Might the outcome have been different if they had stood Trump at the far end once or twice and allowed us to hear more from the others? If they had shut down Trump's interruptions? Perhaps. If he wasn't allowed to be the star, he might have just quit, or, at least, passed on the debates.
And in the one-on-one debates with Hillary, why was Trump allowed to upstage her by stalking around her like a ref at a wrestling match? What a joy it would have been if the moderator had made him stay in his corner.
The networks didn't do any of these things. Why? Because Trump made "good television." His obnoxiousness was good for the bottom line.
Michael Schneider
Lummi Island, WA
The real explanation for the election of Trump is Hillary. A decent candidate without so many blemishes as Hillary would have beat Trump. But there were too many progressives who refused to vote for Hillary and her moral corruption, while Hillary pushed people she called Deplorables to vote for Trump. 30% of Trump voters voted for Obama, so the only explanation for the election of Trump is Hillary.
2
Ever hear of Occam's Razor? "The simplest answer is usually the correct one." Forget TV & FaceBook. The vast majority of people hated Hillary Clinton & would never have voted for her. Period.
2
If the “vast majority of people” would never vote for her, then how is it that more people voted for her than her opponent?
I remember the day the Access Hollywood, Billy Bush, bus tape was released. My neighbor showed me his cellphone with a plethora of emails. The emails all contained older, previously disproved allegations againt his political opponent. What amazed me was the viral dissemination of the emails.
All that was needed was the "injection" of the media by the faithful subscribers.
Facebook, Television and emails, all bullets in the same propaganda machine gun. Who pulled the trigger?
1
Psychological warfare theory and concepts was applied into every media venue to get the Pretend King Trump elected. In the end, bribery was the best course of action, let us not forget the electoral voters who really voted him in not the popular vote. It is a rigged system and the GOP since G.W. Bush days has been learning how to manipulate it and place their "guy" in. Unfortunately, like all manipulators they lost control because the Pretend King Trump has another master Czar Putin, wanna be Emperor. It was all planned not by just a few sinister GOP people but by many. Question: Why? Did the GOP fear that this country would finally meet the goal that all men are created equal; Did the GOP fear an all white America because they fear the backlash by minorities who have been treated by them unfairly? Fear is the operative word here. Money is the second. Billions to be taken from us through privatizing social security, Medicare, retirement and long term care, they are aware of the baby boomers longevity. Keep the Pentagon Generals happy occasional conflict with victories of course, and plenty of money for their pet projects. We are a society that is drawn to gimmicks the advertising agencies know this, GOP exploited it. So now what? Knowledge is power and now we know.
1
Whew! Someone finally said this out loud.
"...the business model of our news channels both assumes and heightens polarization..."
Spot on. Thank you.
1
This is a nicely written important reminder by Mr. Douthat, and timely as well. However, I think one point is perhaps missing: we have to give some credit to the unique made-for-TV charisma of DJ Trump, whether we like him or not. He was gold for cable television.
"Where did so many people originally get the idea that Trump was the right guy to fix our manifestly broken government?" I can answer that from my perspective. For the record, I do not watch television, I get my news predominantly from the NY times and I do use Facebook to stay in touch and interact with old friends. I got the idea that Trump could be the right guy as I became increasingly disenchanted with the traditional droning politicians that talk and talk but never get things done. I did and I still support Donald Trump not despite of but because of his unorthodox and businesslike approach which, by the way, seems to be working famously.
"If the trauma of Trump’s victory turns social-media gatekeepers into more aggressive and self-conscious stewards of the liberal consensus, the current freakout will have more than served its political purpose." Liberal consensus? You mean like the right to data privacy on the web?
5
What to do about the large segment of voters who are too ignorant or naive
to understand the difference between fact and fiction, showmanship and integrity?
We did have public school education that taught about the Constitution, the law, defined propaganda, was (largely) politically unbiased -- so much has been watered down, has experienced the infiltration of religion into the classroom. And who is to blame? Republicans in municipalities, counties, states, House and Senate. People: Our only hope is to vote out Republicans, elect Democrats. Then we the people can elect Democrats and Republicans who recognize the value of compromise.
1
Mr. Douthat, is there no end to your defending the "conservative" idea? Do you not mind that Russia helped get The Con Don elected? Do you really think the current state of OUR United States and the world are okay?
If so, you are even more brain-washed than I thought. There is nothing "normal" about America right now.
Regan gutted antitrust laws, which allowed BIG business to control everything because they bought up all their real competiton. Bush, Jr. got us involved in an unwinnable war - and untenable situation - in the Middle East when he invaded Iraq. The corporate-catholic-owned u.s. supreme court, which is supposed to work for ALL Americans and protect democratic governance, decided money is speech and corporations have people rights. And we have The Con Don.
I don't know where your ancestors came from but I do not think this was the "American dream" they came for and planned on. Or maybe it was?
3
I don't think anyone I have seen (such as the whole cast of talking heads on MSNBC and CNN) are blaming Facebook for electing Trump. It is at most an open question, a point for debate, something that may never be answered, etc. Certainly up to this point, Fox News, even though its effect has probably plateaued, can be credited with enveloping more people into a fog of falsity and propaganda than anything else. But I'm an old foggy, and though I have a Facebook page I use a little, I don't even have any idea how you see "news" on Facebook. Where is it? Not so for people under 35. The controversy is eyebrow raising and it bodes of the future. You can say right now, it did not do much, and you are likely right. Neither did TV before the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy debate.
1
Many things played a role, Ross, in causing the present political crisis. All of those pertinent factors made some difference. The relationships among the factors are complex.
For example, some factors were almost certainly catalysts for others. In other words, small quantities of the former permitted the latter to be influential. Yet without the former the latter would not have been influential at all.
Moreover, the list of such factors is not a mutually exclusive list. We don't have to select one and thereby rule out the others. All of the things that you mention, Ross, and many more that you don't mention, played a role.
1
I don't agree with Ross often, but he's dead on.
How many times during the primary season and then the direct campaign was CNN broadcasting a shot of a crowd gathering in a plane hangar, with the legend saying something like "Waiting for the Candidate's Plane to Leave NY to Fly Here for a Rally in 3 Hours" with a tiny little square in the lower left showing another candidate actually speaking, but with NO SOUND, because the panel of "experts" was talking about the upcoming rally?
I don't think any of the other Republican candidates really got an opportunity to present his or her positions, other than at the debates, which were staged to show him off.
The idea that this is somehow OK because it was a business decision by the network is ridiculous. I don't care how good any candidate is for revenue, profits, sponsors, etc. The hundreds of millions (if not billions) of free air time that man got had a cost to all of us.
And it hasn't stopped, by the way. You'd almost think the folks at CNN want that man re-elected (no matter how much they may seem to be conspiring against him). If you're talking about him -- even negatively -- you're not talking about someone else. And you are playing right into his hands.
1
The argument as to which "news", fake, "reality", "real", etc etc was responsible for Trump's win will never be resolved. What is indisputable is that people with brains were taking in varying amounts of it, and deciding that he was fit to win.
43% still say he is doing a good job. How did a nation of citizens (necessary for a democracy) become of nation with so many uninformed, thoughtless, resentful, lackeys of a vulgar con artist? I suspect it came about gradually as life became easier with the unprecedented (and at one time, fairly widely shared) economic success of the country, which seems to be intertwined with the rise of free market corporate/capitalist production. A "job" does not demand the thoughtfulness and critical obvservational skills, nor the persistence, delayed gratification, and planning required of any person who is their own "company", be it farmer, blacksmith, mechanic, etc etc. A job demands subservience, not autonomy. Work, and a job, are not the same thing. The price we paid for our wealth of money & things, was our character.
1
Douthat conveniently forgets the what he considers liberal mainstream media (major networks and newspapers) proved it never actually was in its shameful participation of the Bush/Cheney propaganda scheme to sell the Iraq War. Whether it was the firing of Phil Donahue or burying skepticism on page 5G or publishing Judith Miller's stenography of Chalabi and Wolfowitz or accepting Colin powell's speech before the UN as fact-based, the fundamental conservative nature of profits over objective journalism was hardened and intact before the Trump ClownShow ever turned into scripted and phony reality tv.
There is a process going on, and its existential nature is that more and more people have problems separating fantasy from reality. And corporations choose to monetize that as much as practical.
1
Somehow, this thoughtful article by Ross Douthat has gotten me thinking back to the big question I found myself asking in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election, (the same question I find myself asking every 4 years):
How/Why did we get to the point where our choice for President of the United States, the most important job on the planet, is limited to THESE TWO candidates??? YES, we can blame a LOT of factors, on BOTH sides. But HOW do we end up with TWO heavily-flawed and highly unlikable candidates?
Let me share something with you folks, and maybe Ross or another Op-Ed will take this and dig deeper, and hopefully put together an interesting and/or thought-provoking piece of OBJECTIVE journalism. One that maybe can help us begin to bridge the terrible divide in our electorate:
I voted for Trump. But I DID NOT want to. The only thing I wanted LESS than a Trump Presidency, was a Hillary Clinton Presidency. Many of you assume, (and I believe incorrectly so), that all or most Trump Voters are idiots: Low-IQ, Reality-TV watching, Gun-Toting, Racist, Homophobic Misogynists. I can tell you that this is far from the truth. While it is true I am a middle-aged white male, I have never watched a single episode of reality TV. I don't own a gun or belong to the NRA. I am not a racist or homophobe, I have friends and family who are black, Hispanic, Asian and Gay. I love all of them. And I was raised a gentleman, to treat women with the utmost in courtesy and respect.
7
Ok so you were a protest vote as many were. I get it. But how could you not see that your protest would stab your friends in the back? Clinton was far from a saint, but she was no carnival barker bully like our current president.
1
Robert, that is exactly what I myself would like to know. I will answer any questions honestly, if it would help get to the root of the matter. My post was just to point out that I believe there is some widespread misconception on the left, as to what the root cause(s) of the election result really were. It is not a single answer, but the one most commonly characterized by many NYT readers, may not be the largest factor. I guess it just makes an easy target for their angst.
Here is another twist: As distasteful as things currently are, I am still not convinced the long-term future of the U.S. would be better under HRC.
does that mean we can blame this whole fiasco on the Kennedy/Nixon debate?
1
Trump is fantastic at self-promotion. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and Trump knows that. And
Cambridge Analytica played a part in prescribing his activities in those areas that mattered--say an anti-immigration speech in a swing state, a vaguely (or nor so vaguely) white nationalist speech in areas where it mattered. Trump is a minority president and won because his campaign played for an electoral college win not a popular vote win and for that they needed the fine-tuning provided by internal polling and data derived from analysis of individual social "beliefs" and this was garnered from social media. It waits to be determined if CA shared this information with the Russian propaganda mill and even the Fox News propaganda mill. I'm sure Breitbart, through Steve Bannon, had this info in order to direct its content.
1
Exactly the problem of this gigantic fraudulent Presidency and the charlatanism behind this entire episode in our history. Instead of feeding the carnival atmosphere with tabloid news that stokes only more sordid tabloid news, the media needs to stop catering to Trump and this administration by NOT covering him at all. Don't show up at these pure propaganda and misinformation campaigns of Ms. Sanders or at his rallies, or at least do not report on them. Simply don't show up and don't cover it. Take away the oxygen. Reveal to to the world the small boring uneducated ignorant individual that he is without all the fanfare. Because in the end there is nothing there and nothing of importance to report.
1
Every utterance from Trump's foul mouth was repeated constantly on all the news stations. He got free media coverage from NBC, CNN as well as Fox. Every campaign "speech", rally was shown. I don't know what the exact statistic is, but he got far, far more coverage than Hillary did. The more vulgar, boorish his behavior or comment the more coverage he got.
When atomic scientists detonated the first hydrogen bomb, there was a fear that atmosphere of the planet would immolate everything on Earth. They did it anyway.
The same ruthlessly cavalier attitude applies to Cambridge Analytica: they wanted to see if it could actually sway an election regardless of the risk. It found that it could.
The planet still exists, a new technological frontier established. Of course, there is nothing useful or constructive that came out of the H bomb or election meddling except that both are possible and can never be used responsibly.
Cambridge Analytica had no interest in Trump or Clinton, nor did Facebook. All they cared about were the nuances of social engineering and, above all, profit. These people are ridiculous geeks somehow disassociated by blinkered entitlement, a certain sociopathy, and enormous wealth from the dangers of their anti-social instincts. Nefarious organisations like Trump's would only be too happy to embrace this sense of insouciant disregard for their own advantage. It is unwise to attribute Trump himself with any vision at all other than wahtwas manufactured for him by the hobgoblins around him.
1
If we use technology to pursue plots like Star Trek movies, we'll prove that Enrico Fermi was right that technological civilization is so fragile it can't last past a few centuries after mastering nuclear physics.
1
I don't understand the big difference between a politician tailoring his speech based on phone polling and getting advise from a staff member and the modern version of using the Cambridge Analytica. Really the same thing, one using older technology the other one is keeping up with the times.
I remember few years ago Obama was praised for his team that was able to use social media information and integrate it in his campaign.
This is a good critique except for Douthat leaving out any mention's of the New York Time's well documented contribution to the media that Trump 'hacked.' Until the NYTimes faces up to this, they are liable to repeat the mistake. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-media-has-a-probability-problem/
4
"I take a certain mordant pleasure in watching Mark Zuckerberg and his minions scapegoated for the political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism."
What?
That came out of left field. Because it also came at the end of the first paragraph and is not in any way explained or justified, it casts doubt on the credibility of the rest of the column.
This is actually a useful thing for the time-pressed reader. It sends the message "Move on. Not worth reading in its entirety."
1
I wrote letters to this paper and others pointing out that bizarre and outrageous behavior by a presidential candidate was not necessarily news, and would be better left to tabloids. Yet day after day, this paper and others covered Trump as if he were the Last Coming. The saddest spectacle was in the latter days of the campaign when Trump would appear before reporters from serious news organizations where they would be insulted, humiliated, and taunted by Trump as fake news and liars. Why did news organizations continue to cover those events?
2
I fully expect that we will find that Fox News, Roger Ailes, Hannity, etc. were as hooked in with Cambridge Analytica's psychometric campaign as was the Trump organization.
Call me a conspiracist-- but, please, investigative reporters everywhere, prove me wrong.
1
I can only share my anecdotal evidence, but I know more than several older ladies here in the wilds of rural northern Illinois who do not watch television but imbibe a nearly 24/7 diet of Facebook mush. They are addicted to their phones. A pure, unadulterated addiction that has then twitching and looking around as if there was a lion in the vicinity when they have not checked their phone in the last 15 minutes. Kids, cats & Facebook.
They are, to a woman, rabid Trump supporters who will brook no derogatory remarks about their chosen one. They have a ready supply of "Obama was worse" and "Thanks, Obama!" talking points at the ready should one engage in conversation about nearly any topic of current events. Some of them pack heat. I'm not kidding. The NY Times writes about the problems young men have in today's society, or about old white men bundled up in their resentments and anger - but I'm here to tell you old white women are in an addiction / cognitive dissonance crisis of their own.
4
The only big news in the campaign seemed to be Hillary Clinton's emails. The emails, the emails, the emails. Hours and hours reading stories and watching the news talk about her emails. And , I never could understand the attention to her emails and what was wrong with her using them. Still can't and don't believe there was anything wrong. And the Networks and Newspapers never asked about issues. Shame on them
4
Some of you may recall the prescient movie " Network" from 1976. We were so busy listening to Howard Beale exhort us to open our windows and scream as if our lives depended on it that we failed to fully appreciate the capitalistic rot which promoted him. Ross, I admittedly differ with you most of the time but this time you nailed it.
2
No. It were machinations and gullibility that made Trump president.
1
Pray tell, what were the "political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism"?
Few would call Obama a liberal ... he never did himself.
Few would say that the late-Obama-era had any accomplishments at all: the affordable care act, the stimulus bill, the tax cuts ... they were all early-Obama-era.
The Obergefell decision of 26 June 2015 was from the Supreme Court, not from the Obama administration.
So I repeat. What were the "political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism"?
3
How much does it matter how he won which will be picked over for years to come. What really matters is how he governs the good ole USofA. Right now he is overturning all we hold dear and our Republican colleagues are turning a blind eye because of a desire to fulfill their grandest dream -- turning over the idea of liberal democracy and replacing it with an idea they have yet to formulate sometimes called "nationalism." What they will do with this ideology is hidden from view because they are so power crazy that they cannot take time to consider what to do next. They are a bunch of near treasonable toadies to a crazy person who is also intensely immoral at his core being.
Because many in the US worship television, watch it constantly, and watch stupid shows like the Apprentice, people think that is real life. Trump played a businessman but is really a reality tv host of a game show. Born rich, given everything in his tabloid life, made a career of cheating and lying to people and not paying taxes, now with the media's help we are saddled with the fake reality tv so-called president.
2
The concentration of media ownership has besieged US democracy. Radio may be worse than cable. We are living in a media oligopoly. Murdoch's 2-billion-dollar donation to the trump campaign went unchecked and underreported. Putin and Murdoch are archetypal bedfellows in this tragedy. Limbaugh and Hannity are just sewer rats feeding off the crumbs
1
I will take this one step further... Jeff Zucker gave CNN to Trump all through the primary. When 'The Donald' called Ted Cruz "Lyin' Ted", CNN rejoiced and played it over and over again. Then there was "Tired Jeb", that got a lot of traction. But nothing got more coverage than "Crooked Hillary".
Zucker gave Trump unlimited airtime when Trump had no campaign structure whatsoever. Why? Because it created conflict that then drove rating north. And what happens for Jeff Zucker when the ratings rise?... He gets a bonus. It's all about money. End of story.
Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama were the reasons why Trump won. Americans getting sick and tired of politicians who promise the world, then don't deliver. They're also getting tired of the partisan politics.
Time and time again, Gallup Polls reveal that Americans are more 'centered' than the leadership of both major political parties. We are neither deplorables or right-wing extremists.
United We Stand . . . Divided We Fall
3
"...Americans getting sick and tired of politicians who promise the world, then don't deliver."
So these "commonsense" and "centered" Americans did a complete 180 ....and voted for a fake politician who promised the world, and had no chance of delivering. Now that *is* deplorable. And he hasn't delivered, because he never gave a damn about anyone other than himself. And we're *all* more than sick and tired of him.
Everyone knows Trump's face.
Who is the national face of the Democrats?
Whose fault is that?
1
In an article dated 11/20/2016, The Street reported that Trump received $4.06 billion in free media prior to November 8, 2016. NYTimes, not 'television media', was leading the charge for clicks during 2016. Facebook, and its offensive right column filled with fake news certainly played a part. But, it was well known early that it was primarily trad media that gave the EC to him.
Don't forget about all the morning interviews on the NBC Today Show. He constantly lied about having the highest rated show. Nobody ever called him out on that lie. It wasn't in their corporate interest. CNN made Trump the front-runner early on and wouldn't give any other candidate serious airtime. Trump was good for ratings, so he dominated the airwaves. It is old media that made him President. Facebook had nothing to do with it.
And yet he continues to hack the media. Every tweet gets repeated ad nauseam across cable news & every new bit of crazy out of the White House gets dissected to the nth degree by pundits. Meanwhile, stories about immigration, gun law reform, health care, and other important policy issues get shifted to the back burner, while we are subjected to yet another story about Stormy Daniels.
1
Tweets are not NEWS. Why CNN is paying Trump crony's to constantly harange for him? It should be disqualitfying for any CNN commentator to mindless support any candidate or to flat oiut lie - like Trump's do.
I felt this same cold fury watching CNN hold onto an empty podium waiting for trump while legitimate politicos talked policy to cameraless rooms. But, hey! It's America, where the only drawn line that matters is the one just above the bottom.
Douthat has squarely hit the nail on the head.
1
The New York TImes isn't much better. Pre-election coverage was all about Trump, and Clinton was mainly covered in Trump's terms. Sanders was ignored. Unless media are forced to cover everyone in the same way, this will never change.
1
My conservative relatives watch Fox new exclusively. The other outlets are too liberal for them. And they watch it all the time, like it was a space-shot in the late 60's and early 70's. This is who they are.
1
Well I think you got to count the people who were dead set on not voting for HC. That group includes tons of women liberal conservative all nationalities and all races. I've heard so many women tell me there was no way I was voting for her
Come on, Ross. There is only one TV station truly responsible for the political rise of Donald Trump: FOX. Fox was the echo chamber for his Birtherism, a movement that enabled him to take over the GOP. FOX turned Hillary into a monster and liberalism into the Devil. FOX is where people who think our first African American president was a secret African get their information. I agree with that British politician who declared that the Murdoch family is a threat to democracy across the Anglo-American world. They certainly helped destroy the Republican party.
2
Trump played all the cable news channels like a fiddle. They still don’t realize that they were the mark.
But people watching, say, "Morning Joe," were not in thrall to him. They just watched in horror. It was on Fox that a consensus favoring his issues (Birtherism, building a wall, expelling immigrants, etc.) took hold.
Trump may not be one of the intellectual luminaries of 20th and 21st centuries and he never claimed to be. But not being an intellectual or not being overly intelligent does not mean he's not shrewd. He proved that to excess when he won the election. Let's face it: If you're a billionaire and you can manage to build your candidacy largely on the back of the less fortunate and/or conservative elements in society - better educated than ever before - by convincing them that you're in their corner and at the same time play the media without them even realizing it, you must be doing something right - and unfortunately he did. He may be the worst modern-day president the US has had so far, but he shouldn't be faulted for that. It's the electorate that voted for him and put him in the WH and the media who played into his hands that are at fault for allowing themselves to be hoodwinked.
1
It was television, alright. Somebody had to replace Hee Haw!
You, the NYT presented the electorate nearly every day of the run up to the election with a false dichotomy between two "deplorables," one of whom they gushed about as the most qualified candidate in our country's history (false), while being equally generous with the other and even-more nauseating choice. Certainly they printed his appalling statements, but neither recalled the sham of a Democratic primary, where a true FDR/RFK style Democrat, who could have spoken to the full and very large working and underclass of this country (I mean Senator Sanders, who almost every poll showed beating Trump by a significantly larger margin than the DNC's anointed might), while still speaking with the same respect to minorities as to white voters, was blocked out by the Democrats, by NBC, even CNN, and by the NYT.
On the one day when the NYT ran a sober appraisal of Senator Sanders' many legislative accomplishments while in the Senate (super Tuesday), they pulled the article by noon from their website and rewrote it for an evening edition, stripped of anything that might inform left-leaning voters that Sen. Sanders was the ONLY democrat or Democrat running, though he was (for good reason, given the levels of the DNC's corruption and cronyism) long leery of joining their ranks.
The NYT created Trump in the end, with their daily side by side front-page articles contrasting Trump and Clinton, and five articles over the year buried somewhere in the paper about Senator Sanders.
Shame!
Sanders is not a Democrat, he is a self described Socialist. The DNC owed him nothing.
Sanders and Trump are both very similar-hateful demagogues, they just attacked different groups.
Trump rallies during the campaign resembled Jerry Springer episodes where brawls broke out weekly and aggrieved participants ranted in your face slurs. Trump borrowed this style when he growled 'Your fired' into the faces of humiliated participants on his show.
Trump's base ate it up as it reflected their desire to air their own grievances vicariously in the most vicious way possible. But this method of controlling the crowds is as old as human history. In Rome the crowds gathered in the Coliseum to watch the emperor turn his thumbs up or down howling their satisfaction most loudly when the thumbs turned down and some soul was torn limb to limb.
The only difference now is that the media circus reaches tens of millions anxious to participate in our blood sport politics.
1
This just in... Trump wants to replace Mueller with either Mr Magoo or Elmer Fudd. He reckons they're real people since he's seen them on TV.
In a related Trump administration development, Homer Simpson denies being approached for the job, but intimated he's up for replacing Scotty 'do it' Pruitt at EPA or Ryan 'stinky' Zinke at Interior. "They're cartoon characters too, so why not me" Simpson related via his publicist.
It's a 'bizzaro' world livin in the time of Trump. If he's replaced with the pestilence that is Pense, we go from the frying pan into the fire...
VOTE Them OUT
Great editorial, I WAS an avid watcher of MSNBC, and in particular Hardball with Chris Matthews, until this election. Night after night I tuned in to Hardball for campaign news, only to see nonstop Trump, often occupying virtually the entire show, the only commentary or criticism being bemused tidbits. I found myself ranting at the screen, aghast that this idiot was elevated so blatantly.
I blame the election result on the so-called "objective" media, for their sycophantic fawning over this joke. I'm done with MSNBC.
1
... hmph...and all this time I was suspecting it was just good ol' superficial gullibility. It is amazing just how spiteful of a nation we are.
Trump's recent address to voters in Pennsylvania on the eve of the special election there (and in Alabama, before that) was a stomach-churning reminder of the days of his campaign when television news accorded non-stop coverage of his hateful, inflammatory rallies while denying the same to his opponents. It is, indeed, all about money and ratings -- and the studies cited regarding internet vs. television viewership and news sourcing in Mr. Douthout's piece reveal exactly why and how that is. And now he's president, so the coverage can be justified all the more. I dread for what we are in store, and lament that we need to monitor our personal news intake thanks to the unappetizing, untruthful, lowest-common-denominator, demagoguery to which we are now subjected, day in and day out, while also doing our best to remain discerning and vigilant. America elected a television character, not a qualified, well-informed leader, and though people are freaking out about Facebook, we need look only a bit further (as suggested here) to identify what truly influenced voters and as a result has placed us in the center of these fraught and frightful times . . . what has made us unwitting and unwilling characters in this disgusting and dangerous reality television program.
1
The defamation lawsuit of a contestant on "The Apprentice" should yield videotape of "outtakes" from the show that reveal Trump to be the buffoon that he is. The writing and film editing process made him look smarter and more insightful than he could ever be.
1
And why are so obsessed with Russian interference in our election when we've had the Fox News propaganda machine informing the low-information public for decades!? Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and Roger Stone had this all figured out since Richard Nixon's days. Hopefully their pal Don will go down like his tricky predecessor.
The big news is that the snipe and smear name "Crooked Hillary" was not invented by Trump. His signature line was concocted by Cambridge Analytica.
They thought it would resonate with the white discontented and the naive evangelicals in the red rural states. Those folks don't care about Trump's infidelities and scams. That he is a Bilkionaire is a plus.
I think Trump came up with "Make America Great Again", MAGA slogan. It has a Reality TV WWE SuperStar name quality. It's a meaningless vague statement that fakes wrestling real issues but supports TV ratings, racism, misogyny, xenophobia and extremist nationalism. Fascism. With a TV flare. Noone ever loved a camera more than Donald Trump.
Give me a break. Everyone knows Trump sells. NYT was just as complicit, as are all of us. Count the number of NYT articles about Trump versus Hillary. Then count how many people read each article.
And he still is claiming the fame. How many days has Trump Not been on the front page?
I read obsessively every story about him. Don't you?
The man is as vile as they come, but I have to admit he's a brilliant [con] man.
1
I don't think the voters who went with Trump because they read that Clinton was dying or she sold guns to ISIS can be laid at the feet of the mainstream media. Were these the majority? Probably not, but in this election you needed 40,000 votes in 3 states. This argument would be easy to settle by a couple of reporters with phones: Call random voters in PA, WI, MI. Ask who they voted for. Ask what if anything they read or saw clinched their decision. Write it up and get ready for your Pulitzer.
TV was certainly a huge advantage for Trump, but why? Trump was an obvious a racist grifter and kind of stupid. His surrogates were always outnumber and generally looked as if they were about to put on a plaid suit and start selling shares in the Brooklyn bridge. Cohen's "what polls?" moment was funny because it was characteristic. Trump won because 46% jumped on a racist con. Are US voters pure delicate flowers that will break under the mere breath of criticism? Three important things happened in 2016. 1) The media correctly reported the political rise of a lunatic as news. 2) A huge part of the public declared "hurray for lunatics!" 3) Under pressure from conservative criticism the normal media reported Clinton's email management & charity as ever and always something sinister. The amount of nothing reported as something was astounding.
so naive and kind of dim-witted, douthat. social media is a new thing, and it is very powerful. more powerful than even their creators know.
1
Although Trump hacked the media, excepting for Fox News and a few minor channels, the coverage was largely negative on Trump, often bordering on ridicule, which more likely than not would dissuade viewers from voting for Trump. But it vastly raised the public's awareness of him to the extent that name recognition, rather than knowledge about him, may have been one of two criteria used by many voters in their support of him. The other criteria that flipped the coin was the constant anti Clinton drumbeat by Trump and the GOP in general. The anti Clinton campaign was legitimized by Congressional investigations long before Trump announced his candidacy and sustained years after her role as Secretary of State. Despite repeated appearances before Republican controlled committee hearings she was never charged with anything, except for being sloppy for using her private server. But the innuendos continued, amplified by Trump and his cohorts and broadly repeated in social media and conservative and right wing radio shows. To the uninformed it lowered her stock just as it raised that of Trump. One should not underestimate, as Douthat does, that these media were not crucial to Trump's victory.
1
Classic Douthat intellectual acrobatics: Trump and Facebook spread disinformation on a massive scale and subverted both the privacy expectations of 50 million Americans and our democracy to make money and get Trump elected, so naturally it's Obama's fault.
Get rid of this guy. He hasn't made a serious, plausibly reasoned argument since he started here. Bring Safire back from the dead. He was an honest conservative.
86
I couldn't agree more. It must be a lotta work to come up with the perspectives he writes here.
1
Can Douthat and give us Frum. At least he is rational.
3
Mainstream TV treating Trump rallies as though they were news sure helped him.
But to conclude that conservatives won't be "allowed" to use tools Democrats and liberals lose - you've lost me, Mr. Douthat. The main tool that Republicans have in abundance and Democrats much less of is money.
The liberal complicity in the Trump presidency is a sin of omission not commission. It is a failure to understand that conservatism is not an honourable opposition it is antiAmerican in deed and in substance.
America is founded in empirical evidence, science and in evolution and religious Dogma is ant-ethical to the faith required to believe in "we the people" and a universe that brings us closer to understanding who we are , where we are going and where we want to go.
Many of those that call themselves Christian stand in direct opposition to the center of Christ's essence which says the truth shall set you free. The denial of science and intellectualism of the conservative movement stands squarely against the America that questioned the dominance of Kings and corporations that say they spoke for God and science when what they stood for was ignorance and superstition.
Like most liberals I was brought up to believe Western Civilization was a debate between empiricism and religious dogma. I was persuaded religious dogma and faith were one and the same when in fact religious dogma and faith are opposites. Real faith has no need of dogma and welcomes empiricism and embraces it into its understanding of the universe.
Facebook is wonderful when we understand what it is and what it does. When we see only its economic and social value its ability to both create and destroy is overwhelming.
1
Oh that's right Face Book has been so off the charts successful because their Micro Marketing - Targeted Ads, they don't work, now I understand.
You fail to touch upon a singular fact that separates conservatives and liberals: conservatives overwhelmingly refer to social media and email for their political "news." This newspaper revealed just this week that Republicans re-tweeted, shared, and forwarded from social media millions more times than liberals. The sphere around conservative information is very small: there is Fox, there is Rush and Sean, and a half-dozen web-sites. Tahy all interact, repeat each other, spin each other up. Conjecture on one is fact on another, until it hardens to a shiny, glossy cement.
My liberal friends didn't send me chain emails about Hillary's lesbian lovers; mu elderly Republican aunts and uncles did. My Facebook page wasn't used my liberal friends to repeat conspiracy theories; my Republican friends did, at least until I shut FB out of my life.
Sorry, Ross. But I didn't make it this way: liberals read far more diverse sources than conservatives.
1
I was enjoying Douthat's "cynicism" until I came across this biased and erroneous assertion: "the more important cynicism in 2016 belonged to those television execs who were fine with enabling the wild Trumpian takeover of the G.O.P., because after all Republicans deserved it and Hillary was sure to beat him in the end. Except that she didn’t beat him, in part because he also exploited the polarization that cable news, in particular, is designed to feed." First, "biased" because he overgeneralizes "those television execs" as all Democrats. Even not all Democrats voted for Hillary. Second, "erroneous" because Hillary BEAT Trump, in the popular vote. It's the system (Electoral College) that took it away from Hillary and gave it to Trump, by landslide. Get the facts right and stay rational, when you're trying to write a critical opinion piece. Popular vote should be the way to go. Some slow-to-no growth and US Government-subsidized states have too much sway in the presidential elections. Not good for the country. Not fair and just for an individual citizen. I live in a "red" state. I want my vote to count.
Right on about "The Apprentice" and it's importance in creating Trump. I tried to watch it once, but it was so obviously contrived I couldn't bear it. Trump had MILLIONS of viewers who thought it was real though, and thought they knew him well. Any informed person who knew his many business failures didn't buy it, but that story never really got out much, except for long New Yorker or Times articles that most of America don't read anyway.
When I think of Trump I keep recalling Archie Bunker, whose bigoted pontificating drove his liberal son-in-law crazy. He reminded me of my father. There are lots of Archies out there still, and many of their sons-in-law are of similar ilk. I don't think the sixties transformed our society quite as much as we thought they had.
1
"enabling the wild Trumpian takeover of the G.O.P., because after all Republicans deserved it and Hillary was sure to beat him in the end"
I generally don't agree with Mr.Douthat, but this one is right on the money.
There was a lot of hubris on Hillary's side, which turned out to be incompetence.
To some of us old English teachers, a glitch in writing is distracting. The first use of the word "freakout" was a stroke of genius, just the right term. The second use was a little irritating because unnecessary. The third, in the same paragraph, stopped me cold because all I could think was, "Where are the editors?"
That bit of schoolmarm kvetching aside, this is a wonderful article that raises an obvious issue that I had simply never considered. I will defend my lack of insight only by saying that I don't watch much television and have never seen, nor have even a clear idea of "The Apprentice." But what you describe, and the conclusions you draw, make perfect sense. Of course it is the last regular watchers of television who voted Trump into office. Of course.
I have been among the guiltiest of the scapegoats of social media. And, although like you, I believe that in a perfect world Mr. Zuckerberg and his ilk would call it a day and fold their tents. They have long outlived whatever usefulness they had. And now I do think they are a potential danger.
But somehow, Mr. Douthat, in your conclusion that this will be the end at least of the possibility of an imitation of what Trump just pulled off, you hold out a little hope.
I have often wondered what the outcome might have been had the greedy media moguls decided to just stop covering all his antics. We won't ever have an answer to that one.
Don't forget the early fawning coverage of Morning Joe, where Trump would be allowed to call in and get asked softball questions. Trump played the media like a fiddle.
1
Should not Trump take the blame as well? True the Dems/Liberal were too passive and that was and is very bad. True they did nothing. But who acted?
Cambridge Analytica acted. Facebook acted. Trump acted through, the Russians.
If these parties had not acted in concert, no one would be expressing such outrage now?
Ross, you miss the simple facts that:
Trump receoved about $2 BILLION in free airtime
Hillaru receved about $0.7 Billion ($700 million) in free airtime
Bernie received about $0.35 Billion ($350 million in free air time
We need the "fairness doctrine" to be reinstated.
Equal time for each candiaite.
An we also need to KILL Citizens United, which is what allowed the Mercers to dump many millions of dollars into supporting their two "favorite" candidates, frist Cruz and then Trump.
2
If "the liberal consensus" is shorthand for "the antidote to Ross Douthat's ideas on what the Pope SHOULD have said", I'm all for it.
The mainstream media gave him tons and tons of free advertising in their efforts to report every tweet. He did not need to pay for advertising, the media did it for him and are still doing it. I am sick to death of hearing about every supposed outrage he has committed. You are playing right into his agenda of bait and switch, instead of reporting what is actually being done or not done by our government. I understand that he is diverting, but we are listening to the fiddle while the republic is burning.
I do not agree on much with Ross Douthat, but I am in a similar page on this topic. In my view, it was CNN and not Fox who made Trump president. Fox did not take Trump seriously until CNN started covering Trump disproportionately, and Fox realized it was losing audience; then Fox started covering Trump daily statements and rallies. CNN then continued the coverage without editorially pointing out the lies and misrepresentations, but just letting the pro- and anti-Trump pundits explain. Most of the talk about Hillary was about the emails. Most of the talk about Trump was about what Trump said, with bad stories such as bankruptcies, Trump university, unpaid vendors, and sexual harassment lasting no more than a week (and not editorialized).
I think this author has totally missed the reason that hacking Facebook by either the Russians or Cambridge Analytica is so creepy . Facebook is offered to the public as a nice sweet sight where family posts kitty pictures and shares news about family. Then these nefarious entities deceptively manipulate these folks politics . But they don't stop there . They also gather all their information . It's totally creepy. Facebook may not have been as influential to elect Trump as Fox news was but without it's background influence I wonder how credible Fox news would have seemed ? So isn't it an accumulated effect ?
By the way , Trump didn't win the election by the popular vote which is another accumulated effect here right ? The electoral college combined with gerrymandering is what elected Trump . The biggest fact of all is that Hillary Clinton had millions more votes on her side . And that ain't fake news
I used to be on Facebook . I'm so happy I deleted my account 18 months ago :)
2
Too many people who don't want to think too much watch too much TV. To be told what to think. Truth for a large part of the Trump base demographic is simply "I saw it on TV". For many of them, this vapid presidency is simply just some more entertainment. Stop with the "conservative/liberal" blather. Most people who voted for Trump are no more "conservative" than Trump is. They knew his name from TV. That was good enough for them.
Of course, this sort of media meddling to support news sales pre-dates TV. Let's not forget the (alleged) quote by William Randolph Hearst, "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war."
Trump's election and social media's exploitation by deep pocket ultra-right Libertarians would not have succeeded if the education system was actually educating perople to engage in democratic government choices. How else can you explain poor people viting for a president that offered policies that hurt poor people and further enrich the wealthy class in which the president is a charter member from birthrite?
The core challenge that America's education system needs to reconsider is that education should not be entangled in nativist idolotry. American children are fed a steady diet of America being the greatest country on earth - the land of endless opportunity. The kids swear alligiance to the constitution and sing the national anthem(s) daily before school classes commence. Do you realize that most other G8 nations don't have their school kids involved in daily political indoctrination? It portends to exceptionalism that is an accident of history and temporal - as was the Roman and British Empires.
the sooner the U.S. education system focus on building a smarter and wiser student to ngage in democratic process and (yes, indeed) political action, the sooner America will recover from the danger and risk of electing a chronic lier narcisstic and cunning man to hold the most powerful job on the planet.
What do your children ask you about Trump? How do you explain America's superiority under a demogouge president who congratulates Putin and praises Rodrigo Duterte?
I've long blamed "The Apprentice" for getting us into this mess.
1
This sounds just a little like a piece to belittle the importance of the Russia investigation, to downplay the potential meddling that could go on unchecked if we do not recognize the intent and potential of Russia's expansionist goals. You say, it was TV and media who really put Trump over the top, not Face Book or the Russian meddling. Let's say you are correct. Let's say it effect is a bit overblown. Should we then ignore the Russian intentions, ignore the fact that what the media picked up on were seeded by the fake news perpetuated to Face Book consumers? Ignore Cambridge Analytics? Should we say - oh, it was TV that was the prime driver. Quit picking on Face Book. And by implication, "don't worry so much about Russia". You sound like Trump's lackey. Trump is taking drastic action to insure the Russia investigation will fade away. It should NOT fade away. This article smacks of a somewhat covert action to help that effort rather than offer any possible solution to problem - TV media - that you raise.
It does not matter how these guys got data. What matters is that we have a nation willing to put all of their thoughts and ideas and personal info on line. If you do't realize that this will be used over and over by any and all (corporations, politicians etc.) then you are ignorant of the 21st century. Its not face book its the users responsibility to use common sense. Yes, if you are a right or left wing person they will target you but its up to you to verify the info they send. If its something you wish were true and you accept it without verification then its not facebooks fault. WE the people need to accept that we are the problem.
For once, I THOROUGHLY agree with Ross. Blame Facebook all you want but we happen to be a country where Fox News has the highest ratings amongst all cable news channels.
Trump is only the latest symptom of the illness we really have. The illness is extreme distrust and division within our ranks, extreme fear of the future and massive inequality. Someone devious and smart enough can easily exploit this through very traditional media - they don't necessarily need Facebook or Cambridge Analytica.
2
Reason cannot reach people who have come to believe that propagating unreason pays post-mortal dividends.
Wow. So Trump is the fault of liberal t.v. media? This editorial is loony toons. For many reasons. Here's one that might have gotten lost in all the nonsense:
"...conservatives and populists will not be allowed to use the same tools as Democrats and liberals again..."
Yes, Mr. Douthat. Our democracy has a Democratic bias. Social media is, at its best, a tool for the average citizen to have a voice. By definition, giving more people voices -- i.e., increasing participation in our democracy -- will have a Democratic bias. That's kind of how democracy works.
1
Thank, Ross. You're right, but the show has changed, morphed into something with better rating. Now we're watching season two of 'Traitor Trump.' Next season it will be "Traitor Trump: catch me if you can." It's like reality TV combined with the Roman coliseum: half the crowd wants him to win, half wants him dead, and we get sexual innuendo after the kids go to bed. It will be interesting to see the point at which the Trump sagas looses their entertainment value. Will it go the way of Gilligan's Island - don't want to watch it again but vaguely glad to know it was there? Will we be able to buy the boxed set at Cracker Barrel?
What are trying to do here, Ross? Stick it again to liberals, this time for somehow blaming Trump on Facebook? That's a red herring.
The problem is certainly broader than the latest Facebook revelations. One can be concerned about the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook mess and still be fully aware of the negative impact of TV reality shows and news programming on the American electorate. And one can also be profoundly worried about the ability of that electorate to use media critically. The media give us whatever makes money or serves their financial backers' interests; we have the responsibility to be skeptical and discerning. Right now, many Americans don't seem up to the task.
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Thought needs to be given to the nature of news as a business. Businesses need to make money. So why is it surprising to some when news businesses do what makes money? Reporters may be motivated by idealistic values about speaking truth to power and an informed citizenry but news owners much of the time take big profits while cutting newsroom budgets and cutting staff. News for profit needs the support of an educated and discerning public. Look at what teachers in some American schools are being paid and at who is in charge of education at the federal level and you will see how little value is being put on education in your country. No wonder someone like Trump the manipulative showman was elected. He's good for ratings - all show and bluster and give 'em what they want, lowest common denominator. It takes an educated electorate to have an educated President. Don't blame the Internet or television networks. Blame whoever is in charge of your education system.
Find me the first person who was swayed by a FB post. This was a cable news war with Fox taking the right, and MSNBC taking the left, and CNN inviting extremists to debate. No one taking the sensible middle during the campaign and cable splitting the country while Trump won the electoral college. He LOST the popular vote which would undercut the FB/ social media argument presented as the thesis of this column. The truth is most FB groups are like-minded and reinforce each other's mindset.
I concur. And I have to add that as a liberal (Facebook describes me as one) I wonder that if the tables were turned and Hillary had won - would we be as cynical and forceful attacking Facebook its cohorts?
The problem for conservatives is that the leader that they chose was not conservative - but Republicans are dragged along with with him because he sways the power toward them. Best any of us can figure now is that Republicans still don't forcefully challenge him because the longer he's in charge, the more blue the country gets. That channel of power is pure currency in our world - and like the interest rate on bonds, has time value. Challenging Trump potentially wrests that power away from them - and everyone feels that better the "devil they know, than the one they don't."
But there is no doubt this situation is the product of "The Tube," that RM Nixon spoke about in the 60s - and the short attention spans it engenders in our society - a culture increasingly bereft of readers and considered thinking.
And yes, I have to agree - this is going to hurt the right more than the left, because the damage done by this guy will continued to be uncovered and dealt with for decades, and Republicans will bear that scarlet letter for some time.
But not for too long - because our culture doesn't have the stamina to blame anyone for anything beyond the lifetime of a 144-character Tweet.
I could go with your analysis Ross but for two factors: Trump was a celebrity for many years on and off TV, nothing new. His opponents both primary Republicans and Hillary were well aware of that and yet were caught utterly unprepared. Add to that Hillary's sense of entitlement.
The problem may not be television or social media but an uniformed electorate that looks for simple solutions to complicated problems.
2
Like so much about Hillary Clinton, her sense of entitlement is a fiction.
Very nicely written, and excellent points. I always felt that we didn't hear enough about Obama once he was president. Maybe he kept a low profile for someone in that office, maybe he didn't court the media. But he was low drama, and yes it doesn't drive ratings. I hope we can all see a really cool reality show and watch him get impeached, indicted, whatever. In real time. I think multinationals are the ones who run things now anyway. Trump's trying to turn the clock back to a retro economy because that's the kind of environment in which his kind of "leader" can continue to flourish.
2
If you ever watch coverage of far-right political figures in Europe on the BBC, France 24, or other international TV outlets, they're very good at knowing how to frame those candidates. Marine Le Pen was routinely introduced as the "far-right candidate" during the recent presidential campaign in France. Her rallies and speeches were covered, but in the framework of someone clearly with fringe views. We rarely, if ever, heard Trump introduced in the same way on CNN or MSNBC, even though his views are very much in line with Le Pen's (i.e. "far-right candidate Donald Trump said today...").
One would hope this was a learning moment for American television.
4
As has been well-documented but strangely not mentioned anywhere in the Times, the Trump campaign and anti-Clinton groups in general also did an effective job of feeding traditional newspaper reporters stories about things like Uranium One and the email server issue. They come off as idiots or as people who are fine with being manipulated if it gets them a story. The Times is also a threat to democracy at times, and needs to get its act together. But instead critics will get stonewalled with denials, as they have been for all of 2017 and early 2018.
1
It was all "EEK! A mouse!" material. When one actually looked at what it was, it was prosaic.
Steve Bolger--
It was but most people don't have the time or the inclination to think things through. We are an intellectually lazy people on the whole. Plus, the sheer number of "crimes" Hillary Clinton was accused of must have had an effect. Some claims were unbelievable by any but the most naive and credulous of people (remember pizzagate?); others, partially by juxtaposition to the crazy stuff, were possible, even probable.
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have to stage online "town hall meetings" in order to hold serious discussions about the needs and problems of ordinary Americans, like healthcare, the drugs epidemic, gun violence, the shrinking middle class and wealth concentration, unaffordable childcare and higher education, and climate crisis, and even when they do, their statements do not make it into the daily broadcasts, print and online news coverage of the mainstream media. When they are invited for interviews by broadcasters, they are asked only to respond to Donald Trump's latest Tweets and outrageous behavior. How can viewers and readers change this virtual media blackout of serious political discussion about the issues that affect our lives, backed up by real facts? One of the mainstream news agencies needs to take a stand for democracy and do their constitutional duty to inform and educate, not entertain and titillate, the electorate. It might start with a declaration that Trump's tweets will not automatically be broadcast or printed but covered only if they make substantive policy statements. Our demcracy is in peril and journalists have a responsibility.
5
The author has some valid points regarding Trump's exploitation of television to market himself as a president to be. However his success was a synthesis of using social media to promote his agenda. As Marshall McCluhan said, "the medium is the message," To rule out Facebook, Twitter, Google and others is not logical. All have co-opted cognitive thinking and substituted simple phrases and images for communication. Trump would not have won before social media was omnipresent. As we can see Cambridge Analytics was used to gather personal information on millions of Americans to use as a tool to brainwash them. And Facebook was exploited by them. Where were the safeguards? Facebook didn't get Trump elected but it definitely helped him. Their non action was egregious and Zuckerberg should be held accountable. So contrary to this author's arbitrary conclusions, it was not just Trump's manipulation of television. We all have to be vigilant, especially Congress, about personal data gathered by many if not all venues of social media, and corporations.
2
Trump sends a message like throwing your spent coffee cups in the back of your pickup truck to dispose of them.
No surprises here. Anyone who watched five minutes of cable or prime time TV news could see this and this has been reported in the months since the election. This has always been an issue and the last election proved how poisonous the traditional way of covering elections like a sporting match can be when faced with a sound-bite candidate like Trump.
Where Ross Douthat goes wrong is in creating an us versus them dichotomy about impact of the data poaching that occurred through Facebook. This is not a liberal obsession. People across the political spectrum are concerned about the breach of personal data through Cambridge Analytica. Now we all should work together to develop ways to allow the free-sharing of information while controlling how much these behemoths invade our personal space. None of us wants to live in a "1984" world.
1
I always enjoy reading Ross' columns, and this one is quite on the money. I'd be interested in him framing this question though a Foreign Policy prism instead of Left-Right. The larger issue seems to be that authoritarians are using Facebook to promote anti liberal forms of government throughout the world. It's an effective surveillance tool and Facebook has proven that they lack both the leadership & will to protect privacy or take corrective action to win back the public trust.
1
Tipping point: when 'Face the Nation' allowed Trump to 'call-it-in' during the primaries. They could have simply not taken his call and held him to the (higher) standard that made this program great, but something (ratings?) made them abandon this long standing "base-line."
2
The point is made that older white Republican voters went for Trump and that they were influenced more by television than the internet. However, this ignores the fact that younger voters, influenced more by the internet than television, could have swung the vote Clinton's way had they voted. These potential Clinton voters stayed home in droves. Why? Maybe because Facebook's influence worked.
3
Ross, the single most salient cause for Trump’s election was the regard in which over half the country held his opponent, Hillary Rodham Clinton. I never shared the contempt for HRC, and could have lived with her winning, although I made my confidence clear that under her very little of note would be accomplished for at least four years given what clearly was going to be the continuation of an undivided Republican Congress. Not that Bernie would have fared better – his emotional and frankly demagogic socialist appeal would have turned off enough to give Trump the popular vote as well as the Electoral College vote.
Democrats simply failed to field winnable leaders in 2016, and were the most visible participants in governments that had not been able to manage meaningful movement forward since January, 2011. They were largely perceived by millions of Americans as responsible for freezing our politics solid, were ineffective in changing that perception, and Trump feasted on that perception by offering himself as the logjam-buster.
Certainly, the media’s focus on making money on his coattails had an effect. But our polarized and frozen state, his promise to change that, and the lack of credible alternatives, are FAR more central causes for Trump’s bare success than media coverage.
He hacked the traditional media? How is that different from what Barack Obama did in 2008, what HRC sought to do in 2016 – heck, what every presidential contender has sought to do in living memory?
2
Trump won the Republican nomination, before winning the electoral contest in the general election, by wiping out the "best field" of GOP candidates in decades. Is that not "salient"?
4
Well it's lunchtime here in the plastics factory as I write this in response to my favorite contributor.
Of the many perspectives from Ross and Richard and others, the one I want to expand upon is that there should be an alternative to Trump or most Democratic front runners that is not polarizing.
Corey Booker? Nope. Same old......
Ted Cruz? Nope. Same old......
Is there no one?
I had a Jim Webb bumper sticker on my car.
I grew up liking Democrats like John Glenn, or Republicans like Bob Dole.
Anyone?
2
NA:
Sure it is. THAT win certainly had more to do with hacking the media than the presidential win. Basically, the liberal MSM handed Trump the nomination with hundreds of millions in free advertising. But that wasn't Ross's argument.
Mr. Douthat perpetuates what he and his media associates believe is and should be true, i.e., journalists are the movers and shakers because they are smarter than almost all others including the elected officials they cover and surely the readers and listeners who just can't think for themselves.
I have enough confidence in people to reject the media notion that most just sit patiently waiting for self appointed oracles to fill our empty heads.
There are at least two better explanations for Mr. Trump's election to be President Trump.
Mr. Trump and his team recognized that winning many smaller states by one vote each would beat someone winning California by millions of votes while losing those smaller states.
Even more important insight can be found in Real Clear Politics right direction/wrong direction polling. When President Obama took office in Jan '09, 70% said we had been going in the wrong direction, 23% the right direction. I believe people wanted change and felt Mr. Obama was more likely to bring that change than Mr. McCain.
These numbers steadily improved during Pres. Obama's first years but were back to 69% wrong direction, 23% right direction by the time Republicans selected Mr. Trump over the more conventional candidates and Democrats selected Mrs. Clinton over everyone outside their establishment in July '16.
Members of the MSM grossly exaggerate their influence because they harbor both overblown self regard and clear contempt for others.
1
Robert Mercer did the math. He's the Dr. Demento of our times.
You mean more contempt for others than the "president'' shows for the American people and our Constitution? Hahaha
1
Excellent analysis. Thank you. Now will the Television execs pay attention?
This column needed to be written, oh, about a year ago. Of course 2 Billion in free TV coverage helped get Trump elected.
However, the issue now is that Trump's consultants, to gain an edge in the election, stole the personnel data of 50 million Americans.
If Hillary had done this, 10 Congressional committees would already be investigating and this topic would lead the news daily for the next few months.
4
The FCC should be sued to enforce their charter. It is a requirement that airwave media prove every 8 years that they have served the public interest in order to get license renewal. That has been replaced with "postcard" renewals. There should be thorough and open hearings with adequate public input of that rule before renewals are granted. The threat of loosing a license in the only thing that will move the media.
8
Broadcast media over public airwaves comprises a smaller fraction of communication every day.
...and Fox is not having an effect? How about members on the FCC that are chosen because they represent the "public"?
To elevate Trump as some TV innovator is to betray history. TV has controlled politics since the Kennedy/Nixon debates. In politics, TV's role is not new, advertising is not new, and money is not new. Douthat, however, claims here that he has discovered the role of TV, advertising, and money in Trump's election. My dear boy, that claim is not new either. But thank you so much for sharing.
2
Isn't it interesting how the NeverTrumpers like Mr. Douthat never take responsibility for their part in Donald Trump's victory? They opposed Donald Trump, yes - but very few (and none of the ones with biggest perch) came out publicly and said "Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this country. So while I'm a loyal Republican, the threat is so great I am going to vote for Hillary Clinton - and you should too."
That should have been what every NeverTrumper said on supposedly influential CNN/Fox/MSNBC every day. But what did they do? They said "Hey, how about this Gary Johnson guy? He smokes marijuana (seriously; he was the CEO of a legal marijuana company post-governorship) and he know zero about foreign policy, but he *looks* the part of a good Republican guy. Let's go with him - though he has no chance to win."
And Gary Johnson got 3.28% of the vote.
Wait - Gary Johnson was too spacey for some NeverTrumpers? Not a problem! They said, "What about this Evan McMullin in Utah? He has no chance and he's not on the ballot in every state. Heck, I'm not sure what he looks like. Let's vote for him anyway!"
McMullin got 0.53% of the vote.
Mr. Douthat is talking how the broadcast media led everyone astray - but *his* corner of the media would be thrilled if Paul Ryan was the president and Ted Cruz VP. (Mike Pence? He's a lawyer; they'd stick him on the Supreme Court where he can ban abortions and gay people.)
I fail to see how we would be better off in that case, Mr. Douthat.
5
Mr. Douhat must have missed the extensive liberal commentary on how Trump hijacked the media, including columns in this paper and chapters in books, particularly Susan Bordo's. I am somehow not surprised.
2
I do think that there would be no President Trump if there hadn't been The Apprentice. I don't have much admiration for real estate developers to start with, so my default opinion for braggy, tasteless Trump with his braggy, tasteless skyscrapers and trophy wives, going way back, was that he was a jerk. Then I happened to see him once or twice on his reality show. It was a bit of a surprise: he seemed like a fairly intelligent, reasonable guy. He sat in a big chair with a high back, listened to people, looked thoughtful, and made decisions. He wasn't unnecessarily cruel.
This was just something interesting to me. I think I said something to myself like, hmm, well I guess people who think a lot of themselves have an easy time being agreeable. Nevertheless, my image of Trump was changed. He came off as quite a good Decider, and even maybe a good guy.
And that Decider was the person who entered the race for president. That gave him an enormous leg up, because people really don't differentiate between actors and the roles they play on TV. (I STILL have trouble believing that Cliff Huxtable could have drugged and raped women.)
3
Finally, someone gets it. Thank you Ross.
1
Yes! All true. 24 hour "news" organizations gave unlimited coverage to Trump's rallies waiting for the next outrageous garbage to spew from his mouth. It's been proven Hillary did not get a fraction of the airtime, let alone the issues getting that kind of airtime. There is probably 30 minutes of valid news reporting in a 24 hour cycle of talking heads, panelists, opinions, commentators and conjecture. What a waste of a medium.
1
It's not common that I find an opinion piece so compelling but this is one of them. Every time you see a host of articles about Trump's latest tweet you should remember this op-ed and understand that the mainstream media is what feeds the frenzy.
1
I won't forget the time Senator Sanders won an upset victory in the primaries and CNN had a shot of the empty podium where Trump was to give an address of some sort. For 15 minutes CNN had their cameras trained on the empty podium with the bottom third flag saying "Waiting for Trump to address..." This while Senator Sanders was giving his victory speech. The mainstream media did not help Sanders at all for a very long time with coverage but showered don trump with tens of millions of dollars of free advertising. Trump is CNN's, MSNBC,Fox News, ABC and CBS's Frankenstein. They ignored, demonized, marginalized and made fun of Sanders for a very long time. The MSM backed Hillary Clinton and called it news not opinion.
5
And then there are corporate profits. If the companies which own the news stations....cable or network....were not ONLY interested in ratings which translate into profits, we would still have programs such as "Person to Person" or "See it Now". But most people cannot remember Walter Cronkite, Edward R Morrow,
Huntley and Brinkley. Most people never actually saw a news program, when the companies didn't expect them to be "money-makers". Trump is president because of ratings, corporate ratings. Liberal? I don't think so.
Douthat constant refrain about Liberal media, for which he writes, makes one wonder whether his logic box is still functioning.
3
That right Ross. Let's not fix the facebook scam. Let's not fix Russian meddling. Those things didn't matter much so let's leave them in place for the next election.
Trump can't win without the russians and facebook. That's true for the repubicans as well. And now gerrymandering is losing steam in some places. So, go ahead and downplay the criminality of Cambridge Analytics and the Mercers. That is typical for a Christian in the GOP.
2
Don’t usually agree with Ross but he hit the nail on the head here.
1
How about the debates being conducted by high school students? They have more at stake over the long haul than the rest of us writing here. Also they would not be as tainted by money and special interests. Speaking of special interests, bias, trolling for votes, influence of money, etc., I think the NYT should require real names and city of origin of the commenters here, to allow a fair discussion of views. Or alternatively, everyone could do it voluntarily out of fairness. I want to know who is writing on the bathroom walls, no matter how sage their arguments are, and many certainly are.
This is an insightful article and useful reminder that the "politics as sport" approach of cable TV, particularly CNN, is more harmful today than it was 12 years ago when Jon Stewart went on Crosstalk and scolded its hosts. That said, it largely overlooks the most destructive force in the media-- FOX news. Over the last two decades, and particularly since the rise of Trump, FOX has shifted from being a voice for reasonable conservatives to a fact free, state-run propaganda channel for conspiracy theorists. FOX, more than anything else, has radicalized our politics by turning the GOP into an ideologically extreme party that is unburdened by facts and science, dismissive of democratic norms, and so hostile to its opposition that it turns a blind eye to the intervention of a hostile foreign power in our elections.
5
It doesn’t matter whether TV media or Facebook is responsible for Trump victory or for that matter whosoever. He needs to be out of White house for everyone’s sake, domestically and internationally. We can figure out later who did what to get him where he is now.
Good insightful article. CNN and NSNBC & others regurgitate the same breaking news day in and day out. Journalists and experts offer in depth analysis, but of what? A demogogues tyrannical tirades and tweet, his dalliances with porn stars??? Our president feeds the airwaves and they feed us, often with an infantile, 'wait till you hear this'. News, real news that would inform the public is relegated to the dust bin as the 'latest Trumpian disgrace leads the wires. By watching only this, reporting only this, we've enabled an American strongman who will destroy our democracy. Ross your insider's perspective is well-taken. Thank you! Turn off the the all-Trump all the time TV. Let's hear some good news!
1
I was about to say "He's right!", when I concluded that the coverage was appropriate because the daily display of vitriol and foul language and utter disprespect for other human beings by a presidential candidate was so incredible. It was a level of boorish behavior that was so utterly out-of-bounds for a politician for national office in America, that it HAD to be reported.
Republicans cannot blame anyone but themselves for the reality of Donald Trump. And the proof of that reality is the state of the Republican Congress today. From the Nixonian outreach to the Southern Dixiecrats to the Tea Party to today, the Republican march has been unidirectional, increasingly hyperbolic, and decreasingly conservative in the tradtional sense of samll government.
No matter HOW Trump got to his position, the absence of any leadership in the Republican Congress that would contradict, much less confront, his daily attacks on traditional decency in public discourse means that the current definition of what it means to be a Republican in this country cannot be denied: being an American Republican in 2018 does not mean that you are conservative, that you believe in small government, or that you are a patriot. It means that you are an angry citizen who is happy to be led by a small-minded, vindictive, would-be autocrat who demeans your fellow citizens, betrays your national allies, and caters to your worst prejudices. None of us can blame any media or messenger for that reality.
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This was my thinking at the time, DT was getting non stop TV publicity. And, as I recall he bragged about it too. The DT voters do watch TV and did. Frankly, it does not seem that the typical DT voter will be influenced by tweets or what might be on the smartphone or computer. As to Facebook data mined to target people, please: junk in the mail or robo-calls? really? it is dumped and ignored. The DT voter liked what was on TV as incredible as it might be to some of us, and that coupled with HC losing 70 electoral college votes in the rust belt where she did not campaign got us DT. I have no use for Facebook or its owners and management, but it was TV, the print media and HC lack of campaign prowess that gave us what we have today.
It is my understanding that evoking people's sense of fear and/or anger makes them less likely to react to situations in a rational fashion. That is a major danger of the kinds of manipulation used by Cambridge Analytica. Television news programs that feature angrily presented points of view no doubt make the viewers less likely to form carefully reasoned opinions.
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Ross: Maybe you should look at a couple of the ironies that were implied in your article, perhaps without thinking about it: First, it's ironic that the corporate television media allowed itself to be used by Trump during the Republican primaries. There were 16 other candidates to choose from but the media selected Trump & his campaign for extensive media coverage. Why? Yes, because of ratings and the income generated by those ratings. And perhaps because Trump had a singular message. But, it was clear from the beginning that the liberal media wanted Clinton or Sanders to be president, and the only GOP candidate that was considered hopelessly unable to win was Trump. So, the attention of the media had the unintended consequence of making Trump a bigger star and ultimately a formidable presidential nominee.
Second, the liberal criticism of Facebook rings hollow when everyone knows that Facebook, like its other FANG Silicon valley compatriots, is a bastion of political correct liberalism and the last person Facebook wants as president is Donald Trump. The Clinton campaign got millions of donations from the Silicon Valley bigwigs, probably including Zuckerberg.
So perhaps the big media barons and their cohorts in the Valley should look in the mirror sometime when pointing the finger of blame for the election of Trump.
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If it's liberal, it's by default. Why can't you conservatives keep more than a handful of conservative outlets in business? Are they just too information-y for you?
I am a longtime TV news producer who has tried hard to provide programs with responsible journalism.
Despite that, when friends and acquaintances ask where they should get credible news, I tell them to turn off the television and read.
Seek out serious, thoughtful journalism in print that is written by credible people.
As hard as we TV staff members try, television is driven only by ratings and revenue. It is not a consistently credible source of information.
Yes, there are exceptions such as public broadcasting and some BBC shows and a few others. But where there is a big "show", don't go.
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Another shortcoming of cable news channels is their failure to note that the Clinton Foundation, the object of constant criticism by conservatives, is still up and running while the Trump Foundation has closed its doors rather than face closure by the New York AG for fraudulent activities.
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Trump’s support is eroding, his base is shrinking, the markets are wavering, and Dems are winning special elections. Americans in all walks of life are tiring of the chaos and uncertainty that Trump thrives on. They are especially turned off by his tweets.
This loss of credibility and growing disgust with all things Trump spills over into the media channels that deliver it to the eyes and ears of Trump-weary Americans. Both online and traditional channels are feeling the backlash.
Myself, I’ve joined millions of fellow-Americans and unplugged from cable television, its mindless, never-ending ads, and polarizing news feeds. Nor do I follow Facebook or Twitter. Instead, I read The Times and various, thoughtful blogs online for my daily news fix.
Brilliant column, Ross—much-needed, in fact—but now let’s look forward. Our rallying cry for November: #WinTheHouse.
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Let's say that a political party, has been committed for years to occupy televisions and newspapers, in this aided by a part of publishers certainly at the limit of bias, but with the advent of Facebook and the like, somehow have been surpassed, so they try in every way to censor the new types of information. Although I am not very much in favor of the negative turnaround, which often such network services incur, I also believe that where there is no evidence to tarnish a regally elected person, we must look for anything else, to continue a long time and in my opinion obsessive witch hunt. We must not be so scandalized ... Other fake news will be created, which will generate agitation and even fear in citizens and above all uncertainty in the future, from every point of view. But then, as a well-known writer and journalist of the twentieth century said, those who provoke excitement often make themselves astonished by those who listen to him, so as to make them believe, to be as intelligent as he is.
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Trump was surprised and not delighted to have won in November, 2016. The night of his inauguration he sat next to an exhausted Melania at the main table and glowered fiercely. Karma is at work here. While making the country a mess, he continues to create his own suffering -- and ours. He's 71 and can't think straight and whatever pathology is going on in Trump's brain, it's progressive. I hope we survive this madman.
This seems like less of a reasoned argument that I might disagree with than one in an endless series of conservative whines. Using hacked data and coordinating with the hackers, if true, is not just an "all's fair in love and war" scenario.
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It is certainly true that Trump chaos fills the airwaves and overwhelms almost all other news. TV helped him get constant free coverage. The Russians, Facebook, and other social media helped him grow his racist, misogynistic base. The Russians also helped by hacking into the voting system in swing states. More importantly, Trump’s chaos serves to divert from how much he, his whole campaign staff, and now many in his administration, are a bunch of thugs and crooks. How many people have taken money from Russian Oligarchs? Manafort, Gates, Page, Stone, Kushner, Jr, Ivanka, plus who knows how many others (Mueller?) .
How many in his cabinet are not just inept, they are corrupt, with misusing government funds and insider trading? How many in the White House have made fraudulent deals, lied to the FBI, beaten their wives, cannot get security clearances?
And now how many women has he paid off? I can’t image that the pay-off was entirely consensual. If the lawyer from a criminal organization such as Trump’s tells you to take the deal, what choice does a bunny, a stripper or a porn star have?
Yes, TV, and even newspapers, and even Ross Douthat, have seen sucked in to constantly writing about Trump, but where are the Republicans? They have no shame and no values, and have not defended the Constitution. Has Trump or the Russians threatened their families with chemical assassination, paid them off, or are they just afraid of losing in a primary?
I don't usually agree with Mr. Douthat, but on this issue I do. Television got Trump elected, because television is an inherently BAD thing. It is not thought-provoking or engaging or interactive. Watching TV is, by its nature, passive. Viewers accept what is given to them, without question, without objection. TV presents illusion as reality, hence the heinous fraud of Trump as a sharp, intelligent, competent businessman or as a tell-it-like-it-is populist. People voted for Trump because they saw him on TV, and for too many people in this country, nothing is "real" unless they see it on TV.
I like to joke that, in the process of divorce, my ex-wife got custody of the television. Eight years later, I am so glad she did. I am grateful that I have been spared the experience of "The Apprentice," "Big Brother," "The Amazing Race," "The Bachelorette," and all the other godawful "reality" programming. Doing without TV forced me to find my news from other sources, and I hope it has made me a better, more informed voter.
The experience helped me to realize this: Donald Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States. He is ignorant, childish, and narcissistic. He has no idea how the U.S. government works, nor does he care to find out. He has no familiarity with the U.S. Constitution, which he swore to "preserve, protect, and defend" (with the glaring exception of the 2nd Amendment). He doesn't know what he's doing. He needs to be removed from office NOW.
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This column is spot on. Three fixes I would propose to prevent this hellacious, existentially threatening situation from recurring.
(1) Stop calling Reality TV "Reality TV". Too many gullible, often poorly educated (remember "I love the poorly educated"?) citizens BELIEVE they really ARE seeing Reality on this form of TV. How about something akin to a warning of "Don't try this at home" announced prior to each show?
(2) Television stations (MSNBC, I'm looking at YOU) should stop giving Trump the same free coverage of his every move the way they did before he won. We never saw every rally, every meeting with foreign dignitaries, every comment of Obama or Bush. Why is it still done with this president? Because these telecasts bring rating$$, in the same way passersby can't help rubbernecking an accident on the highway. But this must be stopped.
(3) The founding fathers, in their genius, created The Electoral College to put the brakes on the certification of an intemperate election. The Electors failed to perform their Constitutional duty in January 2016. We should do away with the Electoral College. It no longer serves a purpose, as illustrated by Trump's non-popularly won election and only serves to confound the wishes of the American People.
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Douthat's insistence on blaming liberals for the evils of the right shows him to be just one more phony and liar of the right.
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Trump won because:
- he promised huge tax breaks for the rich (done)
- he promised a few extra dollars in (white) Joe Six Pack's weekly paycheck (done, for now)
- he promised to stop the flow into America of those "murderers, rapists, and drug dealers" from Mexico
- he promised to get rid of those "Mexicans" already in America "illegally" (the "Mexicans" who do the work non-Latino Americans are unwilling to do)
- he is, as Doubt That correctly observes, a "titan of Industry," and he would therefore bring back to America all those jobs the make all that merchandise currently made in China that we find on Walmart's shelves (probably the most significant explanation for his victory; however, will never happen)
- he thumbed his nose at the LGBTQ community and gay marriage
- he thumbed his nose at Hollywood
- he thumbed his nose at academia
- he promised more and more guns in America (done)
- he paid no attention to those annoying "Black Lives Matter" people
- he promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice who opposes abortion (done)
- because Bernie Sanders purists refused to go to the polls and vote for Hillary Clinton
- because Jill Stein ran
- he promised to address the opioid epidemic (will likely not happen; you see, this requires government)
- because a huge swath of America hates Hillary Clinton
- 102 million lazy (or utterly hopeless; you decide) Americans did not vote
- because Americans are easily bamboozled
- because millennials don't vote
So, enjoy!
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I never agree with Ross, but this column really hit home for me. Think back to the first Republican debate and the fact that Fox put him right into the center of the stage, even though at that point few were taking him seriously. The media was totally complicit in supporting the house of cards called Trump. Everything was fake, from his "boardroom" that was actually not at Trump Tower, to the fact that it were the producers who told him who to "fire". And one must point the finger at CNN for relentlessly covering his rallies from start to finish. Luckily, the whole thing is available on video that can be studied by historians far into the future when trying to ascertain how this man got to where he is now.
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People who can see through people like Trump in five minutes are incredulous that so many people still see some kind of virtue or sense of shame in him, but the worse Trump got, the more his nihilistic base adopted him to express their own resentment of other people looking happy.
1
It really has been Hollywood, right along, for the last 50 years with its gratuitous sex, and violence, that really affected the behavior of young people for the worse. Hollywood, didn't show people getting pregnant or catching sexually transmitted diseases, it didn't show the pain, and suffering from the 24-7 gun deaths, only the taking care of business side, revenge side, nor did it show much substance, only shallow, and bling with the Apprentice. Real life for decades had been about responsibility, self control, hard work, etc., none of which fit into the model of television or the movies, only men getting women, glory and money, with their ego. The days of reading the newspaper vanished decades ago, thinking, too, and gave way to the days of being entertained. Well, Hollywood got their wish, and everyone is entertained, for the worse, Hollywood got rich, and society, and the family is pretty much finished, as is good, responsible government.
3
And the big mainstream newspapers were also duped. Everything Trump was a headline. He paid your salary.
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You are right. And Trump played the press and the media like a violinist plays a violin.
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Douthat seems to be criticizing the most prominent feature of American capitalism here- product promotion, with his complaint that media elitists marketed Trump for their economic gain. Duh- just as the media promoted the candidate Trump with hours and hours of free exposure to his idiocy. Kept viewers and readers glued and helped sell advertising.
There is nothing that defines American culture more than the omnipresent murmurings of marketing known as advertisements, which are often blatantly false and generally deliberately misleading orchestrations of manipulation designed to steer the young and old to consume the product being shilled.
Television shows are a product, newspapers are a product. True believers in absolute capitalism believe product quality isl ultimately regulated by the logical discretion of the consumer (now there's a sales pitch full of holes!).
It can even be argued that the widespread acceptance of lies in our politics was made possible by the steady stream of lies we are fed through the media to sell products as soon as we are old enough to watch TV. If we don't turn down our sense of deductive reasoning, our brains could short circuit from the overload of filtering constant lies.
Trump won because he was the best salesman in the race. Now let's hope buyers remorse corrects the mistake ASAP.
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Ultimately it was the “ unwisdom of the crowd” that was most important. TV can sometimes show the truth about people ( Joe McCarthy ), but not enough people saw the con artist for what he was.
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My Facebook page was flooded with my conservative relatives sending me crazed, off the wall, nasty bits about how the Democrats and "liberal" ideas were going to force all free thinking people to help the lazy masses while taking away their God given right to guns. Along with that intolerance they would intermingle their trips to Greece and sunny resorts.
My liberal leaning relatives and friends sent cute pictures of puppies and yummy looking meals they had cooked for uncle somebody's birthday. Once in awhile they would include an uplifting saying like "no act of kindness is ever wasted".
My fb well-off but dissatisfied relatives would have been the kind of folks that were the amplifiers for the far right's campaign. Facebook was a perfect learning ground and vehicle for them. They became rabid Trump followers by having a place to increase their anger.
FB's influence on folks like my relatives was in capturing their data that Trump then used to pump up his supporters to vote. Fb embedded in their minds T's memes like "lock her up". Catch phrases bred there establishing FB as a marketing platform benignly disguised as a kind of modern day postal service.
Douthat has a point. But he always damages his arguments to pander to his conservative readers with digs at some imagined ubiquitous lib establishment working to take over Am, generic Obama failures, overarching broken gov't complaint. Douthat, make peace with the Constitution, it's the most liberal of documents.
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Lets face facts Real Television News FADED TO BLACK in the 80’s
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Harvard's Shorenstein Center's report on the media coverage of the presidential race clearly demonstrates that "The Democratic race in 2015 received less than half the coverage of the Republican race." The article goes on to document the overwhelmingly negative reporting on Hillary Clinton, and the positive coverage of Donald Trump.
Trumps received positive TV coverage worth tens of $millions, while Hillary received about the same in negative "attack" coverage. Even respected journalists and newspapers seemed to go along with the momentum of the skewed coverage of both candidates, abandoning the concept of fair and truthful journalism--and look what happened. We found ourselves with a tarnished and repugnant media "personality" who doesn't have a clue--and doesn't care that he's totally ignorant of what it takes to be president. He just wants to be the center of attention every day--and again, the media plays along.
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I agree except for the end where you find yourself back at the gate that colleges also find themselves. You assertion implies that the hunt for truth is essentially a liberal search not a ritualistic conservative one. Still, your comments about the news channels and the turning of news into reality TV profit making ventures is consonant with my experience as well. It's hard to figure out sometimes what all of the strategic games are that are being played for the purpose of profit. It seems now that only the billionaires have the ticket to play the game with impunity. Neo Feudalism. REH
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Amen, CNN got Trump elected and they are probably going to get him reelected. When are they going to step up and do what's right for this country. Shame on them and the rest of the media. By far the biggest reason he is President.
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Besides TV, the New York Times was also guilty of vastly overcovering Trump. They did a mea culpa after Trump won, vowing to publish more critical coverage of Trump, but now is too late.
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Aside from the environmental havoc DJT is wreaking - and which any republican in control would have wreaked - the long-term damage is the likelihood that the media will no longer settle for any national political race being conducted at anything other than the fever pitch of 2016. So even if we get Dull Dennis versus Boring Beatrice, the networks will hype it like it's the north versus the south, with dragons, light sabers and nukes. We need to get ourkicks elsewhere and government needs to return from being a fight to the death, back to being a matter of passing legislation that seeks to improve lives. But as long as there are billions to be made from turning politics into Running Man, forget it.
Gotta get $ out of politics.
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Trump spent way less than Clinton did, he knew how to get coverage for free.
It's really simple. Trump won because a wide swath of American voters are gullible fools with no critical thinking skills.
Anybody with half a brain could clearly see the Trump was profoundly unqualified to be President.
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TV probably contributed, but it was still the electoral college.
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Look to yourself NYT! It wasn't just television. You relentlessly stuffed Hilary Clinton down our throats while completely dismissing Bernie Sanders. Clinton was a horrible candidate with too much baggage.
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And Bernie is a "more free stuff", wild eyed, humorless socialist that had no chance of beng elected. May he rest in peace.
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No, they presented the news with journalistic integrity. Trump was and is unfit for a host of reasons. If the deplorables can't see that, I fear for this country.
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Yes, Not one NYT writer came out for Bernie - all were shills for Hillary due to the major ownership interest by Carlos Slim, a billionaire friend of Hillary and hundred-million dollar donor to the Clinton Foundation. The DNC and NYT pushed Hillary who had 20 years of baggage from the Republican attack machine. Although she did not deserve it, for the good of the country she should have been thrown under the bus. Instead she was crowned by the Democrat uber-rich as one of them.
Let's always remember that the Democrats are in the pockets of their ultra-rich donors who pay them to push the corporatocracy agenda. The difference between Republicans and Republican-lites is that the Democrats will throw you a bone for the optics while the Republicans leave nothing on the table.
Donna Brazile essentially stated that the Clinton campaign rigged the DNC against Bernie - "by controlling the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
Most elementary school teachers know that when a child has a tantrum or says outlandish things, you tell the child once to stop & then ignore him/her. In most cases, without the attention, the behavior stops. In Trump’s case, every time he spoke or behaved unacceptably, the media ran it for hours, if not days. He got lots of attention & free publicity, so it continued
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"I take a certain mordant pleasure in watching Mark Zuckerberg and his minions scapegoated for the political failures of late-Obama-era liberalism."
The usual rubbish from Mr Douthat. Don't think I've ever finished a column, frankly, and this is no exception, although I usually make it past the first paragraph...not this time.
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LOL!!! Another humorous article trying to figure out why Trump won.
Trump's TV show? With a sub 40% approval rating? Given that professional wrestling has been around for decades I doubt many are fooled into believing that reality TV is reality. This kind of rings like Mrs Clinton's comments implying that people who do not believe what she believes in are ignorant, deplorable, easily duped, etc. In other words sub-human.
President Trump won because, in spite of how bad he is, the electorate looked around an decided that 50+ years of the same old lies was not working and it was time to try something different. A big chunk of the electorate which routinely went Democratic decided that it was time for a change. Not coincidentally these were in fly over country. Dismissed by the coastal elite apparatchik's as being too stupid to think, that they will just believe in whatever someone tells them, given that the Democrats are the party of promising everything to everyone. Suddenly these "deplorable's" realized that they were not getting what they had voted for.
But really, by voting for and continuing to support him, all they've done is to cement their deplorability and, yes, confirmed that they are indeed too stupid to think.
1
This is a very popular meme which simply makes the point "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Which is what has been going on for the last 50+ years.
And you comment CSL clearly illustrates what I was saying about the coastal elites condescending attitudes. Keep that up and people like Trump will continue to forge ahead.
As is always the case when I out of sheer boredom open a Ross Douthat column, I'm left wondering two things: 1) exactly which planet Mr. Douthat has been inhabiting for the last decade or so, and 2) what misleading point is he trying to make out of a dog's breakfast of half baked notions. I can appreciate Bret Stephens; while I disagree with him on most policy matters, his arguments are coherent and fact based.
He has owned the news media from day one.
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The “media” is largely owned by billionaires, and paid for by advertisers drawn from the same social class. Hacking was not required.
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True, true, true.
Wolf Blitzer deserves heaps of credit here. As host of the Situation Room, his program regularly broadcast Trump's Brown Shirt rallies without critical comment. The camera was just a witness. Viewers then could watch Blitzer then transition to Erin Burnett or Anderson Cooper or change stations and watch the Evening News on the big 3 networks (no need to address what Fox was up to). How much of a dolt to you have to be to fail to recognize how complicit Blitzer and his cohort were in advancing the Trump story?
1
The solution is clear. The New York Times needs to get on the air. And the editorial staff needs to remain in charge of content.
Excellent piece!! Thanks.
Stop blaming everyone but the voters. The Achilles's Heel of democracy is, when the economy or nationalism make people desperate, voters could vote for anyone, sometimes leading to total collapse of the democracy.
Exhibit A: Adolf Hitler
Exhibit B: Hugo Chavez
Exhibit C: Vladimir Putin
Exhibit D: Donald Trump
Does it make democracy worse than dictatorship? I'd say no. But blame the voters, not the media or social media for Trump.
3
'News', when it means covering routine political campaigns, needs to be subject to 'Equal Time' rules.
And, nothing needs to be LIVE!!! BREAKIING NEWS!!!
That includes the various shows that Trump produces all day & are shown in entirety. Same goes for the WH briefing which was never carried daily, in entirety before Trump.
TV s not capable of learning from experience & is run by a group of treasonous CEOs and boards.
During the campaign it was quite evident that Clinton got the short end of the stick from news organizations. The National security forum hosted by Matt Lauer on the Intrepid should be a case study for how television news helped Trump and hurt Clinton. Mr. Lauer lambasted Clinton for 15 minutes over her emails (an issue that completely lacked substance) and almost completely avoided asking her about the serious national security issues America faces. He handed Trump softballs. Now we also know what Mr Lauer actually thought about women.
Where was NBC? Was there any oversight of Lauer's questions? Where was the post forum critique of the interviews which were clearly unfair and unbalanced? The networks were either biased or overly concerned about their bottom line.
Just recently I saw an interview of Senator Warren by Chuck Todd. He opened with a condescending comment about her American Indian ancestry. When she attempted to provide a meaningful statement about her heritage which completely undermines what Trump likes to say about her, Chuck quickly cut her off so he would have time to say what he wanted to say. More free media publicity for Trump.
News media has all their mottos: "Keeping them honest", "All the news thats fit to print", "fair and balanced". Unfortunately, when these ideas are applied to the news media itself, there is not arbiter except the organization. And that is despite the fact that they use the American people's public airwaves.
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While I disagree with the author on most topics I agree that 45 was elected because of CNN and Fox News, with an assist by Twitter and FB.
1
No he won because of targeted Russian Comet Ping-Pong. That is why all the polls were wrong.
1
You're aware that Trump's "hacking" of the media was made possible by the evisceration of FCC authorities -- aka deregulation -- which you champion on a regular basis, right? And you're aware that Reagan began it; the centrist DLCs doubled down on it, and Trump is continuing this travesty?
Perhaps it's time to admit that this whole conservative mantra of deregulation that you so often celebrate is wrecking the environment, enriching Wall Street and misinforming people to enable it.
Another attempt by a right-wing party-uber-alles commentator to place blame for Trump anywhere but on Republicans. No mention of the Republican lie factory aimed at Clinton, denial of any Russian influence ( no collusion here!), or constant spin to try to normalize Trump. No, somehow it was all the evil liberals yet again. What a bizzarre, out of touch with reality life Douthat has. But then, engagement with reality would cause serious cognitive dissonance, so alternate worlds are all he's left with.
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Ultimately, it is a demand side problem.
Fox News tried in Canada.
They gave up after three years of not getting enough audience.
1
I like this column just fine-- some good points, and great comments to round out the discussion. But I will add this: the MSM could never say the words "Candidate Hillary" without adding the adjective "flawed" to precede the nouns. Doing so magnified her every error, shortcoming, bad decision, etc. Because of course she was "FLAWED." This was reinforced so many times that many initially enthusiastic voters turned into reluctant voters, or worse stayed home.
Now Hear This: to be human is to be flawed. For example, I consider myself to be a good mom to my son. But also "flawed?" Heck yes.
The problem is, Hillary ran against a man for whom "flawed" would be a yuuuuuge compliment. He is corrupt, ignorant, crude, dishonest, mean. Put THOSE adjectives in front of HRC and I could understand the antipathy towards her. But merely "flawed?" Look what that lack of discernment-- by the media and by perhaps 100,000 voters in 4 states-- has brought us. To our knees, and perhaps beyond redemption. Policies and programs in place from FDR through Obama--supported by both parties and meaningful to all of us-- lie in tatters or are being destroyed. Our traditional rule of law (however "flawed") is under attack by an unrestrained and retaliatory con man whose final resting place should be a federal prison. GOP dominated Congress-- owned by a handful of oligarchs who want more because they want more- is complicit in this historic destruction of our governmental system.
3
It was a combination of factors - TV was important but voter suppression tactics were critical in the battlegrounds. And that was all she wrote thanks to our ridiculous electoral system.
Putin used FB and most likely the data gathered by Cambridge Analytica as Kushner took over the data mining in June or July 2016 the same time Don Jr. was meeting with Russians and lying about it.
Lies, fake news, false accusations, hate bots and trolls, political propaganda were all Russian methods adopted by the Trump campaign and used effectively as we all know.
A couple of weeks back Kayleigh McEnany of the RNC had an article within CNN in support of Kushner, unfortunately it was either misinformation or an outright lie. The article thanked Kushner and his team for working on updating and upgrading IT within the VA and HHS. Accenture has a federal contract with the VA and HHS running from 2015-2025 as in pre-Kushner.
Until Trump is out of office fact checkers everywhere will have steady employment. I just don't understand why there is still strong support for Trump despite his attacks on our democratic institutions, and how he puts Putin over country. He is working for the one percent and not the majority of Americans yet he keeps a strong supporting base and I have no clue why.
Here's a clue for you. It starts with igno and ends with rance. People don't read about or travel the world. They only consume news that adheres to their confirmation bias. They vote with their tribe. (This ignorance has nothing to do with IQ)
How about the complicity of the NYTimes in the destruction of Hillary Clinton? The Times' 20+ year vendetta against Hillary certainly had something to do with her loss. Even after every point in which it was shown that her email server was a non-story, the Times kept repeating 'but there is a cloud over her' on the front page. There was no cloud, except the one the press kept inventing.
She was a truth shading, greedy, grasping politician. In other words; a politician. Ken Starr had unlimited resources, and he couldn't find anything to indict her for. The same for Trey Goudy and Republican James Comey. Forget not-convicted, she was never indicted. And many partisan Republicans tried.
The NYTimes, setting the trend, relentlessly went after her. So we have Trump. TV is certainly to blame, as is the internet, but the 'Paper of Record' needs to admit its complicity in what they did to make Trump President.
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Ross,
You forgot the Newspapers. I read the NY Times, the Washington Post, and sometimes the LA Times or our local newspaper. During the campaign, all the front page headlines was Trump, and it still is. I failed to see anything re Hillary Clinton except about her e-mails, and almost nothing about Bernie Sanders. That is the real FAKE NEWS. If you look at all of the columnist in the last year, almost 100% is about Trump. I for one am sick of his name appearing everywhere. I am hard pressed to find any NEWS in the papers that is not surrounded by his name or his deeds.
You need to forgo this nonsense and concentrate on what is happening in this world.
3
There isn't much here to disagree with except the false equivalency of liberal and conservative use of social media and the internet. There isn't a Russian troll factory working the internet for the liberals benefit. There isn't propaganda sites like infowars & Breitbart peddling lies and raciest conspiracy theories. Then there is the original propaganda, phony outrage, lies and hate media that started it all. That would be talk radio with its cast of disreputable characters. Without talk radio to plow the ground the rest wouldn't have found such fertile soil. That cable has followed that lead, first at Fox, then at others both conservative and liberal shouldn't surprise anyone. It's a profitable business model and unlike early talk radio it isn't owned and operated by wealthy conservatives to front their agendas. Trumps stint on the apprentice served him well and phony reality TV helped give us a phony politician & president.
3
A plague on all their houses. In an election that was won by a handful of votes in a handful of states, there is more than one culprit to blame. Why does it have to be either/or? Facebook played apart, Russia played a part, Hillary was a flawed candidate. Even at the time there was mention of the hundreds of hours, billions of dollars in free time the media gave Trump. Televisions flaws were open and known.
What makes Facebook worthy of attention is their underhanded operation, allowing payment in rubles for ads on an American election, allowing data mining by a foreign company without monitoring how it was used, etc.
The best line on the entire situation applies to the media as well as Facebook. I don't have the exact quote, but it was by Les Moonves of CBS. 'It may have been terrible for the nation, but it was great for my company's bottom line'. True not just for elections, but tobacco ads, big pharma, and so much more. An appropriate epitaph some day for the American experiment.
Yet another vain attempt by a conservative to run away from the monster he helped create. Bret says it was a "...Trumpian takeover of the G.O.P....", but as is too often the case Bret is wrong because Trump is simply the logical conclusion of decades long republican southern strategy. Nothing new here Bret just louder and dirtier. Only twist here is that Trump is also a traitor.
Ross Douthat, in this one-way attack you don't once blame Trump's cabal on the Republicans, do you? After all, it was the Republicans who paid his way and beat his drum. They remain his pawns, but they're not mentioned in this column.
And at the very end:
"I invite you to follow me on Twitter".
Sometimes the comedy that writes itself is best.
2
It was obvious to many liberals that the media devoted untold hours to publicizing Trump. What took you so long, Mr. Douthan. Much of what you write is what we were talking about throughout 2016. Facebook played a role, but the media, especially that channel devoted to right wing propaganda played an enormous role in electing Trump. We need to know the effects of the hacking and of the groups like Cambridge Analytica, and those working with them and supporting them, like the Mercers and their pal Bannon as well as Kushner and others inside the Trump campaign. The polls moved when Comey came out just before the election with what turned out to be fake news. It was as if he just couldn't wait.
1
Ross is correct. While Cambridge Analytics strived to 'weaponize social media', the Trump campaign weaponized television news. Edward R. Morrow is long dead. Since his death we have watched as TV news has been replaced. It was a small, 'public service' part of the daily broadcast schedule of the networks, with low budgets that left it somewhat independent, and whose main competition was from newspapers and news magazines. Now it is ratings driven 24/7 newsertainment powerhouse with several full-time channels competing for advert $$$ as well as ABC/NBC/CBS/PBS daily programs and even 60 Minutes and VICE-style investigative reporting, and its own set of news-based comedy shows. Its main competition is the WWWeb. We want to have fun and be entertained as we learn what's happening. So the WWF professional mud wrestling by cable news talking heads is more interesting to watch than most other stuff out there. It is the Real Housewives of the Campaigns spatting away. Issues are just the mud in the pit.
1
Mr. Douthat has zero evidence for the relative impact of data harvesting versus TV in motivating Trump voters, but that doesn't stop him from writing a whole column about it pretending that he does.
Douthat makes a very fascinating point and one which, to me, is so obvious that not only do I wonder why it hasn't been made before (at least not consistently) but it makes me wonder whether these media bigwigs got their jobs through luck and connections rather than brains.
As Douthat notes since media thrives on Red Team vs. Blue Team fights, platforms were turned over to the loud-mouthed, snake-oil selling Lewandowskis of this world to represent Team Red's loud-mouthed, snake-oil selling leader while thoughtful conservatives, who couldn't bear that snake, like Douthat, were shunted aside.
But that's a slightly too-fine a take as the media thrives on a fight, not necessarily a Red/Blue fight. And, personally, I would have lapped up any coverage where a Trump "Republican" was put to the test by a Douthat Republican for hours on end. In fact, it was disaffected Republicans whom I most enjoyed watching skewering Trump. But, sadly, it was always done on the company of hard core lefties who really did little other than nod smugly in agreement.
What a waste for the media not to have consistently waged the fight as one between the two wings of the Republican party rather than Red vs. Blue.
What a tragic thought, that our political destinies should be decided by a TV show. I never laid eyes on 'The Apprentice'; I didn't think it had anything to offer in exchange for my time.
and I didn't think I needed to have watched the show to understand all the excellent reasons why I would not consider voting for Donald Trump. Enough US voters, however, thought otherwise. That may be an indication of the State of the nation.
Why do all the Trump haters, on both the right and the left, refuse to accept the fact that he won? He won despite all of his obvious faults, that most of his voters recognized and acknowledged, because many of us felt more comfortable entrusting the leadership of our government to someone like him than any "real" politician. Think about that.
One reason is that Trump didn't win. He lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes.
2
There's a point here, but it's ruined by Douthat's need to blame everything Republicans, the Republican Establishment, the Koch's, and a host of right-wing demagogues have done wrong, and how they elected Trump, on liberals and the liberal media. To that end he relies on the likes of Michael Brendan Dougherty, a fellow right-wing Catholic who also manages to blame liberals and the liberal media for everything he and his cohorts, like Douthat, have done to destroy America, while consistently doing nothing to stop Trump. Is it any surprise that Douthat ends the piece by proclaiming; "In the end, as Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote recently for National Review, one implicit goal of the Facebook freakout is to ensure that “conservatives and populists will not be allowed to use the same tools as Democrats and liberals again, or at least not use them effectively.” If the trauma of Trump’s victory turns social-media gatekeepers into more aggressive and self-conscious stewards of the liberal consensus, the current freakout will have more than served its political purpose." So, the "liberal media" is the reason Trump is president. Fox News, the Republican Establishment, and the of Republicans use of racism and xenophobia via the Southern Strategy which formed Trump's platform are not responsible. Douthat doesn't care if Trump destroys American democracy as long as "Liberal Facebook"is hurt and he can pretend that Republicans who enabled Trump and voted for him are not responsible.
1
This is shamefully simplistic. I claim that because I'm a polite person who reads and has not watched TV news since, oh I don't know, 1977. Liberals blame social media and conservatives should blame TV? Who watches TV news anyway?
I remember when FOX went on the air and saw it for what it was: NOT-news. (there I typed FOX, twice, you didn't at all). I was 40 years old and tired of the showmanship of an actor President in the 80s and then the GOP circus called Newt "Contract with America" Gingrich. Then CNN became a noisy background with a bunch of people just shouting at each other.
As long as conservatives continue to whine based upon the here and now, like a pinball game, instead of taking any long term perspective of what America is, it will always be nothing but a whine.
The importance of social media, AM Radio and TV News as avenue for a civic minded American is zero. Always has been. But who loves it the most? The Right.
1
Trump's traditional Republican primary opponents and their handlers, with few exceptions, "made" him the party's Presidential candidate by giving his ignorance, racism, systemic lying, and other outlandish behavior at the primary debates and during those state contests a free, uncritical pass, cynically calculating that after his candidacy eventually collapsed they would swoop in to collect the support of the MAGA crowd. Their opportunistic miscalculation spectacularly backfired.
Douthat fails to place the primary, efficient onus for the Trumpian Nightmare where it rightfully belongs, at the feet of his party's conservative Establishment. It sat on their unprincipled hands, bit their compromised tongues, until it was too late to stop the Conman's juggernaut, which eventually went one dramatic step further, creating a new Republican Party in Trump's sole, narcissistic image. Reap what you sow, G.O.P.
I wonder why Mr. Douthat wants to continue the warfare between the liberals and the conservatives. He backed the wrong candidate. Is now embarrassed and seems to be looking to blame the liberals for their position on the internet abuse by Trump people of data mined from over 50Million facebook users and as I learned yesterday from a very interesting NPR program, data is also bought and sold every time we do on-line buying. The technical sophistation was astonishing, and perhaps Mr. Douthat should check this out before concocting this wild hai-brained screed about liberals and the tecn community. It was, as another reader commented all of these things along with the electoral college that gave the contest over to Trump, because it was not the majority of people, unless you believe that there were millions of undocumented voters who gave Hillary their votes. Yeah sure!!! But the bottom line is that columnists like Douthatt, whether right or left, need to stop this internecine warfare that has created a schism in this country that now needs to be repaired. By now looking at how the liberals are reacting to the internet abuses, and casting blame and substituting his worn out analysis for the most current piece of this horrible puzzle that made it possible for this man to become President of the United state. It is, like that Austin bomber, an evolving story. More will be revealed.
1
But Ross, what about "Fair and Balanced"? In the media's desperate and craven attempt to appear neutral, they "had" to give equal time to both sides...the bank exec's and the bank robbers, the Russians who shot down the Dutch airliner and the victims, those who tell nothing but lies and those who at least attempt to seek the truth.
The media's excuse...we thought the viewers could judge the truth for themselves. How wrong they were. Many of the citizens of the USA are just like Trump. They couldn't care less about the truth, are as big liars and cheaters as Trump, and so only care about winning...at all costs.
And then there's the money. Trump was money for the media execs who would have their mothers rendered down for the oil if they thought there was a profit in it.
But, I have to agree with Ross on the central point of this article. Many voters simply picked the candidate that put on the best show before the vote...and that was Trump...clearly. The GOP voters are like Romans at the coliseum giving the gladiators the thumbs up or down. It really doesn't matter what crimes Trump is guilty of, he puts on a better show, so set him free upon the world to wreak havoc.
Trump got elected because the people have lost their integrity.
1
Some excellent points. One must remember that TV News, particularly cable, is all about the ratings...not journalism. It's the reason I left the business long ago.
Finally, someone from inside the corporate media machine is admitting the truth of what really happened in the 2016 "email" election, namely the virtual takeover of the American political system by the giant entertainment companies Comcast/NBC, Time-Warner/CNN, Disney/ABC, Viacom/CBS and Fox, who together control 90% of American news content.
The story begins in the slow-ratings summer of 2015. The financially troubled cable networks (especially CNN, who at the time was dragging down corporate parent Time-Warner in its merger talks with AT&T), with 18 months of election coverage to fill, were confronted with the nightmare, ratings scenario of a race between Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, two highly qualified but "boring" and un-telegenic candidates, with a distressing tendency to lapse into detailed, policy discussions about the future of our country.
The cable networks then took matters into their own hands by importing into the campaign one of their own entertainment products, the reality-TV star Donald Trump.
They then took the unprecedented step of granting him unlimited free air time for his rallies and phone call-ins (a privilege they granted to no other candidate), the costs of which they were able to recoup in higher ratings and advertising revenues from the primary debates, which they financially controlled.
Sadly, we have never received a full self-examination and ethical accounting by the news/entertainment industry about its role in the tainted 2016 election.
Ross: whether Trump used television or social media is not a mutually exclusive choice.
Of course, (and pundits probably hate hearing this) the fault is the people's. They didn't have to glue themselves to the TV every time the name Trump was mentioned, they didn't have to be outraged every time Trump said something outrageous.
But you can't blame me. I voted for Leonard Cohen.
I confess to having watched the Trump Act on cable more or less constantly. Why? Because it was better than anything else to watch on TV and the Internet. It was fun. It didn't persuade me one bit in voting for Hillary, weak as she was as a candidate. Cable ratings soared, which is the main objective of TV networks. But there was plenty of coverage on public television and the press (including NYTimes) as well. Saturation. It probably swayed some voters, while disgusting just as many others. This is American democracy in action. And it's being followed in Europe, Asia, Australia because, whether or not it boosts candidates, it definitely boosts networks.
Over the past 20 years we have experienced seemingly disconnected individuals blow-up buildings; walk into schools and kill our children and walk into public clubs and randomly kill customers. Now a 24 year old, without apparent provocation distributed bombs killing innocent people.
Learning that a nation can be manipulated so simply and for a fraction of the cost, we should consider that we need to look closely at all processes.
1
The other issue is the use of Twitter and Facebook as news by the Cable and TV networks tends to create a feedback loop where consumers of TV check in on Facebook to corroborate what they saw on TV and up the click count for stories.
Another example of this was Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezenski, who allowed Donald Trump to call in to the show from the campaign trail on many mornings and give "interviews" that let him spin his campaign propaganda without even having to face anyone or face real pushback -- to literally phone it in, in other words.
Since Trump was elected Scarborough and Brezinski have engaged in a year long guilt-driven tirade against him, fending off criticism that they helped get him elected and very likely aware that these critics are right. Too little too late however.
Our country can be admirable at its best, but at its worst it's a country entirely on the make, with virtually everyone looking to milk every situation for their own profit. It's built into the cultural fabric, sadly. This has been the sad lesson of the calamity of Trump being elected President, our entire money-worshiping system put him there. Douthat makes a big point about how Trump's business success was imaginary and fraudulent, but what if this wasn't the case and someone truly immensely rich and successful had been elected, like say, Charles Koch. Would we really be better off? At least Trump being thoroughly inept at actual life, in contrast to pretending to be good at it on TV, will likely bring an end to his presidency. On the other hand then we'll have Mike Pence, who would love to turn us into a theocracy like Iran, just the Christian version. There are no quick fixes, the rot is deep.
2
It's more complex than the one note song Ross is singing. It's an acrimonious symphony with Citizens United, Russian collusion, the internet and TV and newspaper advertising dollar generation. The master conductors were casino magnates and other wealthy moral degenerates determined to elect, or anoint, a president who would happily lower their taxes and deregulate to increase corporate profitability. The conductors played the lower and middle class like fools - getting them paranoid about social and religious issues so that they would line up to vote against their own best interests.
2
Trump won, in our distorted electoral college system, by garnering 60-70 thousand more votes total, spread out over 3 states, than Clinton did, out of a total of 130+ million votes cast. So to claim that any one factor that went into his microscopically small margin of victory had nothing to do with it, is completely illogical.
It is the news media that is the framer of the mind set of the listening public with their analysis and serving of the news with honesty, integrity and responsibility. When it is entirely profit driven and a slave to the ratings game, sensationalism and shock effect overtakes every other consideration.
Providing free publicity to a totally unfit candidate for the highest office in the land, just because it is good for business is shameless and a failure of the role of the news media.
Unfortunately, a large section of the voters are also incapable of differentiating between a genuine news outlet and a propaganda machine. It becomes even more difficult for the public to filter out the propaganda when even known reliable news outlets falls for this ratings game.
The ascendance of Trump is the manifestation of this collective failure of our political discourse.
1
First of all, this is far and away the best piece Douthat has written in the years I've been reading him. I nearly always disagree with what he writes, but this is spot on.
But...regarding this: “conservatives and populists will not be allowed to use the same tools as Democrats and liberals again, or at least not use them effectively”...
This muddies an interesting issue/question - how is Cambridge Analytica different from what's gone before? We don't know. Obama famously leveraged "the digital" more than anyone had previously, but what exactly they did, and with what data, is not yet known. I'm an Obama supporter, but would really like to know.
1
Well.....yes, Mr. Douhat.
But TV follows, it does not lead. When American had an idea of itself as a sober kind fair and determined democracy, we had news organizations like the CBS operation that was held earnestly separate from the commercial business of popular TV.
But when America changed its driving ethos from Walter Cronkite-esque to Gordon Gekko-ism, TV news changed with it. When the government became "the problem" instead of a vehicle to solve problems, we turned to Wall Street for our gods and to tinsel for our adornments.
All hail President Tin Horn Tinsel.
We need to go back to 2008 to figure out why Trump won in 2016. That was the year the U.S. and the Global economy was this close to collapse. So much financial carnage, with huge collateral damage and the "Masters of the Universe" in Wall Street were never caught and punished.
When bad things happen, and no one gets punished people lose respect for authority. Then Trump tapped into the birther movement and solidified his support from racists. Where was the Republican party then? How could they object when they had been covertly supporting racism since Goldwater? Trump was the perfect candidate for racists and everyone else who wanted to burn the house down for what happened in 2008. Social media and the Russians probably made just enough difference to put him over the top.
2
Fascinating timeline:
Trump's beauty pageant in Russia: 2013
Campaign begins, 2014, with Cambridge Analytica and Russian support
(note, some of memes were recognized from then)
So, people, you think this wasn't planned long ago? Think again. Every trick in the book, including people's temptation to respond to personality tests.
Stop reading those clickbait self-improvement things and get serious. You'll get ahead faster too. There is no "secret". Reality is real.
2
I also blame Morning Joe on MSNBC, who allowed Trump to call in every morning. Joe & Mika treated it as something of a joke, but it has turned into a nightmare. They are singing a different tune these days but I am still waiting for a mea culpa.
4
The Nix (hidden camera) interview claimed that Cambridge Analytica played a larger role in TV also. I'm not saying they managed Fox News, but targeted fake news was promoted in more than one way. I who paid little attention at the time, to "red" news outlets, wondered where the "Bad Hillary" stuff was coming from.
Since I read "killing the Messanger" by David Brock, I see how the Republican doners have support a great deal of fake news for decades. Brock, who switched sides, ran Media Matters for Clinton. MM's task was to refute fake news attacks. Timeliness was important. They were unable to refute the Benghazi debacle claims before they took root in the zombie public mind.
Even though Douthat, turned me off with his "liberal establishment" there is truth in this article. As a life long liberal, at 72 now, I've never seen much establishment of liberal principles. Rather it seems I've always had a choice between Republican heavy and Republican light - no social democrats.
Some minorities have gained ground, but there is no tax structure in America - state or federal - anymore with the progressive tax structure that built the middle class. All we've seen since Ronald Reagan is ever more regressive taxes in the U.S.
1
Truly one of the most insightful, thoughtful and poignant analyses I have read about the election. Ross distilled the complexity of events and the many players involved in a way that help crystallize how we got to this state of affairs; a state getting worse by the day. It's about time someone called out the complicity of the mainstream electronic media!! The various exec's and on air personalities were hooked; couldn't get enough of the ratings bonanza that was Trump and his vile "Brand".
Trump may well have won because Clinton carried just too much "baggage", added to the fact that she was disliked by too many voters. More to the point, the right democratic opponent should have been vice-president Biden who was very well liked, and almost assuredly would have won in a landslide.
As an aside, Mr. Trump is seen, perhaps accurately, as very qualified based on his tax reform success, trade corrections, and being unafraid to tackle other matters which need attending to.
It seems that sometimes we can only hold one thought in our head at a time.
I agree that the networks "gave" Trump a disproportionate amount of coverage during and after the election. They were criticized for it before and after the election. It didn't change and in fact today most news stories begin with "President Trump" and are followed by a tiresome panel of consultants who endlessly analysis is the implications of the most recent act or statement. The Rachel Maddow, which used to be quite broad in coverage, is now one dimensional covering primarily fact based indictments of Trump and his administration. Great ratings. On Fox, Trump and his administration are endlessly defended, with attacks on the left, rarely allowing facts to obscure the argument. Great ratings.
In addition to the above examples of biased news, we have verified attacks on our elections by the Russians using social media, and most recently we have reports of manipulation by Cambridge Analytica using Facebook data in support of and with the cooperation of the Trump Campaign. It is possible that as facts are revealed that there was collusion between the Russians and Cambridge Analytica and the Russians. So to say that our election problem is primarily the biased press and not equally a consequence intrusions using technology is to ignore reality. We have to deal with the whole of our communication, not just the part that is most easily understood.
Mr. Douthat ignores the impact data mining had on convincing African Americans not to vote. Watching the returns from Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland it was apparent that something was amiss. I kept waiting for the numbers and they never came. Clearly the push ads like Blacktavist had an impact.
4
My own experience in marketing is that targeted messages carry greater return on investment than "Shot-gun" advertising. Therefore, I don't totally agree with Douthat. However, the tie in between networks, newspapers of influence and new media should remain an important subject for improving our national discourse. The impact of these old and new media during elections and other times ought to be continuing subjects of critical thinking.
BTW, I would say the Fox channel can not longer be considered a news source. It is Trump's state run media at this point, just as poisonous as the state run media that Putin controls.
9
All media contains an inherent conflict between its entertainment and news gathering roles. This rule applies to different degrees in different media, but none are immune. There may be people working in television who could actually call themselves journalists, but it is really best to think of the vast majority of television news people as employees of the entertainment industry. Many in the media fraudulently appropriate the image of "news" to give their particular form of entertainment a certain kind of spin. The media itself--whether newspapers, magazines, television, radio, or internet outlets--seems to prefer keeping these distinctions blurred to suit their own purposes. Journalism is the genuine pursuit of truth. Entertainment is the pursuit and manufacture of a good story--the more titillating the better.
1
When the President of CBS stated during the primaries that "Trump may not be good for America, but it is good for the "bottom line", pretty much said it all right there from them outset. Trump was now entertainment and a money maker and when cameras were staring at an empty podium for an hour waiting with baited breath for him to show up while ignoring a 20 THOUSAND person gathering at one of Bernie Sanders rallies in the mid-west discussing REAL issues and policy and NOT fluff, we saw another example of the choice that the media had made and it was not going to be in the voters favor. In many respects, I believe they actually hoped that Trump would get elected because when all is said and done, because of their older demographic, cable news is dying a gradual death.
The media had a choice and yet, they made the WRONG one and now the country is paying dearly for it.
4
Perhaps Ross should look at his own conservative philosophy as well. It discourages public interest and investment in secular education and relies upon non-verifiable religious beliefs to structure peoples' minds. If people are going to ignore actual reality in favor of comforting religious stories, which is supposed to be the REAL reality, they are already primed to believe reality tv.
It is no accident that Republicans in astonishing numbers do not believe in the value of education.
2
Spot on Mr. Douthat. The Russia, Facebook, Fake News approaches can only explain so much. Trump taped into and exploited deep problems in our society, which the Democrats failed to recognize or address. This was the issue, not these peripheral distractions.
It is interesting to note that broadcast TV is also the way that Putin maintains support in Russia. The internet-savvy younger voters in Moscow and St Petersburg cannot compete with TV, whence most Russians get their "news".
Though I seldom agree with Mr Douthat, he hit the mark dead-centre with this article.
4
All this focus on media misses the point. Yes, Trump used social media and television skillfully, but that's not why he won. He won because people liked his message. He used classic conservative messages of financial benefits for the wealthy and racial animosity for the lower classes. This combination has won elections throughout American history is as potent as ever.
3
Douthat's focus on Trump voters is misplaced. Republicans would vote for anything with a pulse over a Democratic candidate, and the numbers show that that is what they did in the last election. The Trump voter is a compelling narrative, but one that is not based on reality. The real story is the depression of Democratic turnout, a combination of deliberate voter disenfranchisement, traditional media failures, and propaganda.
Facebook alone cost Clinton the election; 80,000 votes is practically nothing in an electorate of this size. But we don't have to choose among television, internet, print, radio....it's all of the above.
So we got Trump's grandiose plans with no details, and Clinton's fake scandals and trust and likeability issues. Repeat "her email issue just won't go away" enough times, and guess what? The "issue" doesn't go away. If the media had devoted itself to realistic coverage of the candidates' real strengths and weaknesses, Hillary Clinton's win of the popular vote would have been a landslide.
4
I certainly agree with the general principle here, and more specifically with the important fact that TV news--network or cable--is watched primarily by (very) old people. My father was a perfect example. During his business career he had a secretary, so he never learned to type or use a computer. In retirement he would still read a daily newspaper, but as he got older, his primary news source was the TV (vs. internet for his children)--including the dreaded Faux News.
It would be interesting to know via national poll the number of Trump voters vs. the number of Clinton voters who were regular watchers of our current president's scripted, 'reality' TV shows The Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice.
4
The reasons Trump got elected:
1. Citizens United made it possible or the Mercers and other right-wingers to purchase massive amounts of PAC ads.
2. Facebook, Twitter and Cambridge Analytica allowed them to target that money toward Electoral College votes.
3. The news media reported on every single tweet or bully tactic that Trump used.
4. Russia joined in to take advantage of filter bubbles in social media with fake users and propaganda.
Here's the question we all want to know: Are those 50 million user profiles from Cambridge Analytica in the hands of Russia right now?
5
How about:
1. Hillary was a terrible candidate
3
Hillary Clinton was the best prepared and most capable candidate in US history. I always knew getting our first women president would be nigh on impossible. For all of Trump's machismo and braggadocio, he is weak and vain man, a scared little rabbit, who is afraid we will see all the skeletons in his closet. It is people like you, deflecting and blaming everyone but Trump, yet again giving Agent Orange a pass, who are responsible for him in the first place.
1
Right on the money, Ross. I almost never agree with your views, but this time we are brothers up- in-arms. CNN was the most shamelessly and blatantly ratings greedy of all the so-called "News" networks by giving Trump unprecedented coverage with free air time. Does anyone connect the dots that Jeff Zucker, head of NBC Entertainment( at the time of "The Apprentice" became President of CNN Worldwide. The guy is clearly a pimp!
4