America has elected Donald Trump for a second term as president. In his first term, between 2017 and 2021, he made 30,573 false or misleading claims. Trump is also a convicted felon who attempted a self-coup on Jan. 6, 2021.
“As with the Beer Hall Putsch, a would-be leader tried to take advantage of an already scheduled event (in Hitler’s case, Kahr’s speech; in Trump’s, Congress’s tallying of the electoral votes) to create a dramatic moment with himself at the center of attention, calling for bold action to upend the political order,” Michael Harvey wrote in Donald Trump in Historical Perspective: Dead Precedents. “Unlike Hitler’s coup attempt, Trump already held top of office, so he was attempting to hold onto power, not seize it (the precise term for Trump’s intended action is a ‘self-coup’ or ‘autogolpe’).”
The dark side of discourse as entertainment
Since the 1960s, the mass production and distribution of television sets, smartphones and social media platforms has degraded public discourse. Word-centered culture has continued its decay, regressing into image-centered culture. This isn’t new.
“Today,” Neil Postman wrote in his 1985 book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, “we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment.”
In North America, culture is entertainment, so Americans and Canadians alike amuse each other discussing the latest movies, TV shows, scandals and gossip. Many even socialize through media, such as video games or so-called social media, where they quote from TV shows and movies in casual conversation. These conversations are increasingly inhuman, less concerned with human creations and more concerned with technological productions.
Trump & Nixon
“Both Nixon and Trump have been willing prisoners of their compulsions, to dominate, and to gain and hold political power through virtually any means,” Bernstein and Woodward wrote in the foreword for the 50th Anniversary Edition of All The Presidents’ Men. “In leaning so heavily on these dark impulses, they defined two of the most dangerous and troubling eras in American history.”
These “compulsions” are the shadow of a showman, who has many ways to dominate an audience. Entertainers demand attention, so they set themselves center stage. Nixon and Trump are alike in this respect: they wished to wield power over the crowds as the center of attention.
Jan. 6, was proof. “That day, driven by Trump’s rhetoric and obvious approval, a mob descended on the Capitol and, in a stunning act of collective violence, broke through doors and windows, and ransacked the House chamber, where the electoral votes were to be counted.…” Bernstein and Woodward wrote. “By legal definition this is clearly sedition—conduct, speech or organizing by inciting people to rebel against the government authority of the state. Thus, he became the first seditious president in our history.”
Trump, Reagan & rhetoric
On Nov. 5, America elected the first seditious president to a second term. His felony charges, his mountain of false or misleading claims and his vitriolic rhetoric were not enough to deter a majority of Americans from re-electing Trump.
According to CNN, “as of Saturday [Nov. 9], Trump is winning the popular vote with a little more than 74.5 million votes, although millions of votes have yet to be counted in California, Washington and Utah, among others. The final 2024 popular vote tally likely won’t be known until December.”
Like Reagan, Trump will serve two terms; unlike Reagan, they will not be consecutive. The split is significant. Trump’s ability to appeal to approximately 74.5 million voters despite his felonies and falsehoods is further proof he’s a powerful propagandist.
Both Reagan and Trump have been propagandists who exploit the mass appeal of entertainment as culture. Pundits and commentators who characterize Trump as synonymous with a disease are mistaken. Demagogues like Reagan and Trump are symptoms of society that prioritizes spectacle above substance, image over word.
A final example
Consider this example of the shift: “Think of Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Billy Graham, or even Albert Einstein, and what will come to your mind is an image, a picture of a face, most likely a face on a television screen (in Einstein’s case, a photograph of a face),” Postman wrote. “Of words, almost nothing will come to mind. This is the difference between thinking in a word-centered culture and thinking in an image-centered culture.”
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