That a failed developer turned reality TV star and brand
marketer could win enough votes in Republican primaries to become the
presumptive GOP nominee confirms the essential contradiction of a consumerist
capitalist society organized as a representative democracy. Democracy requires well-informed, well-read,
well-adjusted and well-educated citizens, whereas consumer capitalism demands
consumers who are dumb and uninquisitive, with a short attention span, a high
degree of gullibility and a constant undefined dissatisfaction, assuaged only
by purchasing some thing or service.
The pinnacle of consumer capitalism is celebrity culture. Consumer
capitalism glorifies the celebrity, because the celebrity has been detached
from accomplishment or merit and merely represents what one does with the
riches, which in America is to spend large sums of money on garish luxury items
and experiences. Celebrity culture created Donald Trump, the language he uses
and the cultural ideals he embodies.
We remember Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays for playing ball,
and not for spending the money they made—although Mantle did get some bad
publicity for witnessing a few night club fights. But Kim Kardashian is famous only
for being famous. When we think of her, we think of what she does as a
consumer, not as a productive member of society. What we see her do always
involves spending large sums of money. The celebrity sets the standard for
consumption in a consumeristic society.
It doesn’t matter whether the society has done nothing like Kardashian
or has failed, like the failed real estate developer Donald Trump.
Instead of judging Trump by his many failed businesses and
multiple bankruptcies, the average American—trained by the mass media to accept
anecdote overs statistics—evaluates what they see on a
show that they only vaguely understand is scripted. Trump’s qualifications
twist an old joke, “I’m not a successful businessman, but I play one on TV.” For many Americans, especially those without
the benefit of a college education, Trump really is a successful businessman,
as qualified to run for president as Wendell Willkie was.
Celebrity culture not only produced Donald Trump, it also
warped mass media coverage of elections to the point that the rhetoric of a
reality star resonated with major parts of the electorate. It wasn’t his odious
comments that many followers have found most appealing, but the means with
which he delivered his poisonous messages: Direct, without caveats or
conditions. Conversational. In blunt language. Vulgar insults of others. Trump
centers every issue and statement on himself, which TV viewers learn from
reality TV is the central trait of all great people. He uses the rhetoric of celebrity culture,
something that prior performers such as Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono and Al
Franken never did. Quite the contrary, former performers and celebrities turned
politicians assiduously used the rhetoric of politics to convince us they
belonged. But that was before the mass media infused election coverage
completely with celebrity concerns such as who made a verbal error, who
insulted whom, who is ahead in the polls, who is raising more money, who is
more likeable and other issues of celebrity, not government.
Then there is the issue of aspirations. Trump is not a true
conservative, but he appeals to groups tutored by conservatives for the past
thirty years to distrust liberals and blame their problems on the
“other”—minorities and immigrants—and big government. The angry,
disenfranchised-feeling white males relate not just to Trump’s vile, racist
opinions, but also identify with his Laddie Boy Rat Pack lifestyle, which
reality TV and three generations of beer and car commercials have held up as
the traditional right of the white male, a right being lost along with good
paying jobs to the multi-cultural and feminist agendas.
The increasing dominance of the mass media by celebrity news
and programming glorifying celebrity culture created most of the conditions for
the emergence of a failed businessman with fascist leanings and a possibly
pathological narcissism as a major party candidate. But it was an important decision
of the Reagan Administration 30 years ago that created a key element of the
Trump phenomenon: the train of Big Lies, one
after another, often generated on the spot and kept alive long after being
disproven. In Reagan’s second
term his Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ended the Fairness Doctrine,
which required the holders of television or radio broadcast licenses to present
controversial issues of public importance in a manner the FCC deemed honest, equitable,
and balanced. By ending the Fairness Doctrine, Reagan enabled radio and
television stations to broadcast partisan ideologues such as Rush Limbaugh,
Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity without having to air opposing views. Right-wing billionaires
bought up stations, created networks and created the many voices who made and
still make the same false statements about unions being bad, taxes being too
high, crime being up and the nation being overrun by immoral and unreligious
outsiders (recently to include the President himself!). The Republicans supported, and benefitted from,
the many lies of the right-wing news media. They deserve what they have in
Donald Trump.
Those who look at American popular culture and its emphasis
on turning all human interactions into opportunities for commercial transaction
and conspicuous consumption may conclude that America, too, deserves Donald
Trump.
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