ITS ELECTION SEASON ARE REPORTERS RUSHING TO PROMOTE TRUMP AGAIN?
The presidential election season which has been simmering for the last 3 1/2 years is now in full force as we reach the end of January.
The Republicans are attempting to clear the field so that Trump can stage events and offer his egregious comments without being challenged. So far he has effectively avoided all debates even though his opponents have acted with great circumspection as they challenged him.
The Democrats insisted on avoiding the caucuses in Iowa because they don’t like the makeup of the electorate. I guess that means you don’t campaign wherever you might not do well. They also skipped the primary in New Hampshire where there is quite a mixed group of voters from both parties and independents. Presumably that is a good collection of voters where you would want to test how your positions are playing out for the upcoming election. Instead the Democrats have elected to begin their primary season in South Carolina which they have not carried for decades as the state has become heavily controlled by Republicans. Many of the democratic voters there are African American and Biden feels he can show a large victory in that state even though he has little chance of winning it in November!
Somewhere in the actions of these two parties there may be logic but it is hard to find. What we do know is that there seems to be little enthusiasm amongst the electorate for either Biden or Trump. Yet the two parties seem to be insistent on putting those two people forward and their candidacies are supposedly locked down.
Although the election prognosticators are busy. I have not seen anyone comment yet on what I believe was a prominent reason for the result of the 2016 election which brought Trump into our world from which he refuses to leave. I reference the 2016 election because I believe the 2024 election is starting to mirror it. The issue is the election coverage by the news media which is endlessly about Trump. The reporters are fascinated by him. This is an interesting phenomenon because there seems to be little reason for the news media to be enamored with him. Indeed the majority of their articles eviscerate him, however they continually cover him instead of other news even though there is very little news value in what he does. He says the same things endlessly. He is busy declaring that no one else can match him, that he since he is a tough guy other leaders are afraid of him, and that his command of all issues is exemplary and don’t cross him or he will get revenge. All of his town hall interview commentaries and travels are reported, yet hardly anything he does is newsworthy. It is almost entirely bombast
Trumps persona captivates the news media. His campaign relies on dominating the news. I believe in 2016 it was suggested that his campaign received a billion dollars of free advertising from excessive campaign coverage. This incongruity is based upon a feature of marketing which is to be sure your name is repeated as often as possible. Get the name in front of the public is most important not the message. This is what Trump has done consistently. He has told us he is the only one and that no one else matters because he doesn’t need anyone else. If you recall the debates from 2016 he answered a question where he noted that no one else was important enough to discuss regarding cabinet positions because he is the one that would decide everything. Even as he has numerous court cases and criminal charges he never acts ashamed. He snarls while making speeches about political enemies and postures for the cameras.
Trump wants to see his name used endlessly in any manner possible. Not long ago I was talking to some artists and asked them if they were troubled when a show of their artwork got a negative review. I was told that was not the issue with which they were concerned. They emphasized the most important thing was to get their name repeated as many times as possible in the review. The more times their name was stated in the review the more people remembered their name and showed up to buy their artwork. This is the same marketing program that Trump used in the 2016 election and is trying to do again. You recall the news in the 2016 election was consistently about Trump. The only thing I can recall being said about Clinton was her references to papers she posted on her website which people could review. She was not presenting an image. She was trying to show off her knowledge that Trump was being a showman and broadcasting his name.
Even Trumps name for the campaign is a falsehood "MAGA" created for marketing with no basis in reality. It is insulting for him to declare that the United States is not a great nation. America is a country of great freedom and opportunity. Not only do we have the worlds largest and most productive economy but we also have the most inventive. Our education centers continuously produce the most adaptable and knowledgeable job candidates on the planet. To top things off, our military dominates the globe with roughly 435 military installations throughout. MAGA is a marketing name with no substance and no creativity. It’s simply a copy of Ronald Reagans campaign slogan from the 80’s.
Trump could run on his accomplishments from his term in office but they were were miniscule. When he was elected the House of Representatives and the Senate had Republican majorities but Trump could not achieve results. He excels at braggadocio. He failed at governing. He promoted a wall that someone else would build and pay for but they did not. He even took funds from renovations on military bases to help build the wall and even then he could only build a small portion. The proposal of a wall was a charade simply tossed out there for right wing republicans to chew on. There has never been a border wall in history that was successful if the underlying purpose of the people seeking to move is not removed. You have the Great Wall of China, Hadrian’s Wall in England, the Iron Curtain and a host of others.
He also tried to show how he is the only person who can accomplish things by sending letters to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and holding summits with him all to no avail. He cavorted with other autocrats and 17 former cabinet members and senior officials of his 2016 government refuse to endorse him for reelection The list goes on.
Trump is not seeking to run on his record. It is a record which shows somewhere between little and nothing. But he has reconstructed his MAGA campaign with the same bombastic speeches promising greatness caused by his own existence. This persona constantly captures the interest of the news media reporters and unfortunately that leads them to constantly bombard us with Trump news. The trouble is the constant bombardment referencing his name endlessly and is putting his name in front of the voters which may bring him to another positive result in this years election. Recently I was looking at the New York Times Opinion pages (a paper which seems to not be enamored with Trump) and it had nothing on those pages but stories about Trump. There was nothing else in the news of the world that day which got the editors attention. The man is not newsworthy. They should quit covering him so intensely even if they’re going to insist on covering him excessively. I would at least suggest we quit using his last name. Maybe the reporters can revert to just calling him "Donnie".
Obadiah Plainman