My Trump Media Conspiracy Theory

Preach, H.L, Preach

I'm going to step away from the usual beat (marketing and advertising), because I feel the following point is being missed, and needs to be addressed before it gets wiped away on the whiteboard that is modern history. And for the record, I'd like to think that I'd hold this opinion regardless of my partisan position, but as it's probably going to be pretty apparent to you which way I lean, I'm not going to apologize or hide that.

In the last week of the presidential race, there has been two interpretations of the rhetoric coming from the Trump campaign.

1) That he's speaking truth to power, calling out the timing as well as the veracity of various news stories as suspect, and daring to speak of vast interconnectedness at the highest levels of finance, media, and political influence.

2) He's grasping at straws to spread the blame for a failing campaign, and setting up a future delegitimization of a Hillary Clinton presidency, which will help when he sets up a new media network for those in his influence. This is where Roger Ailes' role in the Trump campaign comes into play. Trump TV as an exit strategy has been more than a persistent rumor.

Now, I'm not going to convince anyone of the merits of either of these theories. We live in a time where convincing anyone about anything requires great tact, data, and expertise, as well as a background where you trust the proprietor of the opinion for past work.

But what I can assert, and maybe even reach some minds across the aisle from mine, is that there is some suspicion in the timing, but it's not necessarily due to a favoritism towards Clinton, or away from Trump. Rather, it's toward, well, profits. Ratings. Also, that a democracy that serves these needs in front of informing the populace seems more than a little dangerous.

There has been ample time in this campaign (we're going on what, the second or third year of it?) to vet the candidate from all of his various issues, without anything new coming out in the last few weeks. The bus tape that started the latest avalanche is over a decade old, and many of the women who have come forward with allegations could have been published some time ago. Sure, some of the client's own statements may have caused some to move forward, but a persistent journalist or staff could have, perhaps, gotten some of this out earlier in the calendar year. The graphic and easily understood nature of the tape gives it more red meat than, say, the Trump University issues, or some of the more racier stories about overtones of organized crime in the Atlantic City days, or past instances of adultery, but that's not what concerns me here.

Rather, what seems to be the case is that the media wasn't as dogged in pursuing those stories during the Republican primary, not when there was such a fountain of ratings and takedowns of various candidates to fill the news hole and bring in casual viewers. Some blame must also go to Trump's primary rivals, who clearly didn't do the same level of opposition research (witness Alicia Machado) that the Clinton team did. While it's clear that any single Republican rival that went that strongly against Trump in the primary would have suffered a direct counter-attack, it's also clear that the entire field would have been more likely to end the insurgency had all of the countering forces come out earlier, when support for him wasn't as entrenched.

Much about this campaign has seemed unprecedented, unique, and straight out of an over-ripe screenplay. But what it's also been is highly lucrative for a media industry that has done as little as possible to talk about differences in issues or policy, and has profited mightily from lowest common denominator news stories.

While we can hope that lessons have been learned, and this kind of phenomenon will get faster vetting in the future, it's hard to argue with money. Perhaps even more depressingly, that this is the new normal, where scandal and malfeasance is what will rule the day, now and forever more.

Also, the eternal, true and depressing adage that you learn very early in political science class, which you can also call out for the ratings being so high...

The people get the government they deserve.

And in the words of the late great H.L. Mencken, they'll get it good and hard.

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