Remember when news cycles weren’t choked with rambling, sophomoric presidential tweets, sound bites and rallies? A time when mainstream media weren’t totally consumed by interminable ethics investigations, congressional hearings or government shutdowns? An era in which the body politic wasn’t infantilized and mesmerized by tales of invading hordes, reverse discrimination and an America restored to its Edenic perfection?
Two-plus years under Trumpism (a debatable use of the term given it describes a systemic philosophy — the very opposite of this administration’s circus mentality) this capacity to dominate any given news day or night is still stunning. It’s as though nothing else of lasting importance is happening. Not climate change, not gun violence. Not Brexit, not Syria.
While there’s nothing novel about a modern president enmeshed with corporate media in such a blatant fashion, it’s still a devil’s deal, especially in Washington itself: White House press staffers troll for voter appeal, and White House correspondents troll for viewer appeal. In the end, the administration gets to shape the message and image; and the news networks get to react and predict.
But what’s troubling about Trump’s particular media quid pro quo is not just the gonzo free associations for which he is world famous. Rather, it’s the resulting information isolation — the lack of external awareness, and therefore our international economic vitality.
In a 2017 op ed provocatively titled “The Soul-Sucking, Attention-Eating Black Hole of the Trump Presidency,” Foreign Policy Online contributor David Rothkopf makes the case this preoccupation with Trump is not only a godsend for militarists (Kim Jong Un) and expansionists (Putin), but for rival economies like China’s:
“… as Trump sucks America into his ego’s gravitational field, into the swirling black hole of his neediness and delusions of grandeur, our country, too, seems less relevant. As one Chinese business leader said to me recently, ‘You have become preoccupied. That is not necessarily a bad thing for us.’”
Decide for yourself if Rothkopf’s read of Trump’s character is overly harsh; but there can be no doubting the ongoing diminishment abroad of the US brand — a trend likely to accelerate if the dollar hits the skids before Trump exits, perhaps setting the stage for a recession.
There’s not much good news in all of this. Rothkopf suggests, short of Trump’s exit, there’s no means of interrupting the symbiotic relationship between Trump and corporate news sources. The best he can come up with is for progressives to hunker down, and trust that even Trumpism can’t undermine the democracy that is America.
Postscript: Maybe more than just hunker down, stay engaged. There are scores of alternative/public news outlets available, domestic and foreign, online, radio, television or hard copy.
Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister and substance abuse counselor living in Pittsburgh, Pa. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2019
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