The Politics of Entertainment

Who is the first candidate you think of when I mention 2016 presidential debates? This is an essay in which I will compile information from various sources to try to explain in 3 simple categories the reasons for Donald Trumps’ success this year and predict if he will become the next President.

1) Media and Distraction

Nowadays we are so saturated with information, we crave distraction. Internet and media have offered us the greatest distractions of them all, from cartoons to reality TV to anything available on the web. The presidential debates are no exception and must compete for attention.

“Americans don’t want to read or hear that they are underpaid, overworked, bullied at work, in the home, when serving their country in foreign lands. They want glamorous stories, scandals, exceptional events, news they can build dreams on, or develop a sense of anger from, in short, they want to be entertained” according to French philosopher Francois Debrix. This is the concept of Tabloid Realism: politics structured around easy headlines and common sense dialogue.

In general, people have two main reactions to the mention of Donald Trump: they either admire or hate him. Regardless of whether you hate or admire him, you are entertained by him, and more so than with any other candidate.

We are primed to love distractions and entertainment, which is why we follow the most entertaining candidate. It doesn’t matter whether or not all Muslims are terrorists, or whether or not all Mexicans are rapists and drug lords. To the media, and to Trump, what matters is that you watch the debate and believe it to be true. It’s a more distractive narrative.

We want to believe these lies are the truth and, as 8-BIT PHILOSOPHY on Youtube puts it, “we would rather vote for someone who embodies the reality we want to be believe than a person who actually reflects the reality of politics.”

We live in a society in which what we want is more important than reality, and today’s politics are certainly no exception. Politics have become a game show in which candidates compete for social approval, and the White House is the prize. The presidential debates are no more than a reality TV show.

2) Rise of a Reality TV Star

The presidential debates act as a game show, but how did Trump rise to the top? What are the tactics of reality TV stars? This is explained in The Film Theorists video: Trump is Winning with Reality TV.

First, let’s find the parallels between Reality TV and the debates. “Both are contests with a cast of characters who have cameras rolling on them all the time” as we are told in the formerly mentioned video.

Out of all the candidates, Trump seems to be most aware of the camera and uses social media the most. He is aware of the public and provides entertainment for them in more ways than one, using the Internet to attract more attention to himself. He is creating a clear persona. This is the first step to his success.

Some of the first examples of Reality TV stars we think of (Jonny Fairplay from Survivor, Puck from The Real World, Omarosa from The Apprentice) can be classified as villains. It’s easier to draw attention to yourself by getting people to hate you than to do so by getting people to like you.

Trump has been doing this from the start. He is easy to classify and knows how to draw attention to himself. People wait for his speech, either to criticize or to admire him.

The second step is to stick to a message. With so many cameras rolling for so long, there is a lot of footage that will be eliminated. The best way to get good coverage is to make it brief, direct and honest to your true feelings or morals.

Trump wants to win and doesn’t keep this a secret. In fact, he states it a lot. He does not want to befriend the other candidates; he wants to beat them and is constantly offending them. His message is simple and comprised mostly of one syllable words like “win”, “tough”, “great”. Even his slogan can easily be read by a kid.

The third step is to “bring the drama”. Trump is unpredictable and this makes for exiting television. The audience, regardless of hatred or admiration towards him, wants to know what he’ll do next. He brings the heat to anyone and everyone. He’s started so many fights it would be stupid of producers to not give him so much airtime. Drama means entertainment. Entertainment means a bigger audience. A bigger audience means more money going to the show.

And the final step is to stay one step ahead of your opponents. Trump knows how to read his opponents and disguise his strategy by “breaking the game”. He challenges rules we all just assumed were in place. For example, Trump was able to stay ahead of his competitors through a single event in January: Sara Palin’s surprise endorsement. Although the sheer mention of her name drums up emotion with most voters, it draws attention to Trump.

Another example of this is when, two days before January’s final debate, Trump decided to start his own rally and skipped the debate. Trump knew that, after insulting the other candidates so much, they would surely take the offense and stayed one step ahead of them by not showing up. This also allowed Trump to gain much more free publicity. A presidential candidate skipping a debate may be unheard of, but it draws even more attention to him.

Donald Trump is acting as a Reality TV star, leading his voters with a promise of entertainment and staying ahead of his opponents with hatred and xenophobia.

Trump and Xenophobia

It comes as no surprise when I say Trump is xenophobic. Time and time again he has said racist and offending stereotypes to be true. But why

does this grant him more voters? The answer may be simpler than it seems.

It all boils down to the social anthropological principle of out-group homogeneity bias. Don’t get scarred of the complicated name, it’s simpler than it seems. It’s basically the tendency to believe that people from an outside group are more similar than the people in your in-group.

We generalize and stereotype groups of people we are not familiar with. But why do we do this? We are all a complex mix of likes, dislikes, fears experiences and beliefs and it’s hard to identify one’s self with who we are, so we identify ourselves with who we’re not. By saying things like “That’s not me”, or “I would never be like that” we are identifying ourselves with who we aren’t.

We don’t take the time to understand other people or cultures. Why? Because we search for efficiency. Our brains tend to oversimplify complex situations by using what are known as “heuristics”.

Heuristics are simple rules that help the brain deal with difficult situations when it doesn’t have enough information to decide. For example, the stereotype that Muslims are terrorists. There are millions of Muslims who aren’t terrorists and millions of terrorists who aren’t Muslim. Yet, many people believe otherwise based on the availability heuristic.

The availability heuristic is a rule where the brain makes a judgment based on the examples that come to mind. For example, ask yourself if there are more words that start with the letter ‘k’ or words that have the letter ‘k’ as the third letter. Most people will answer that there are more words that start with the letter ‘k’ because those words come to mind, even though, in reality, there are more words that have the letter ‘k’ as the third letter. Likewise, we tend to judge Muslims based on the Muslims that first come to mind: those we see on the news.

Trump uses heuristics, a natural, subconscious part of the way we humans think, to convince us of his cause. After all, it is much easier to hate someone than to fully understand them.

3) Will he Win?

Surprisingly, his chances of becoming President aren’t as high as we might have thought (even if they are quite high).

Remember what I said about Trump using the tactics of a Reality TV star? Although those tactics will make stars, they rarely make winners. All of the examples of popular Reality TV stars I mentioned got relatively famous, but none of them won.

Trump is an early tribe leader who got pretty famous, but now his tribe is trying to bring him down before it’s too late. In this case, the tribe would be the Republican Establishment. Political endorsement has been growing for the other candidates, but endorsement for Trump is few and far between.

Republican leaders fear that Trump is an embarrassment. His decision to skip the debate made it clear that he might not be ready to compromise, that he won’t take the time to get to know a specific group of people enough to help in times of crisis.

Trump is starting to feel the effects of the Republican Establishment backlash. After leading the poles for most of the months leading to the Iowa caucus, he finished second, receiving well below the percentage of votes he was predicted to get.

Trump is still in the lead but if the parallel between him and Reality TV stars are any indication, he might be able to stay ahead of the game and become a star, but not a winner. This only time can tell.

Conclusion

Using the techniques of Reality TV stars, Trump has become the personification of a reality most Americans want to believe. By distracting

us with scandalous dialogue, he has reached peak popularity this year and is preparing to become the next President. He uses heuristics to gain voters, promoting xenophobia and hatred. However, things may not go in his favor, for his tactics only prove how unreliable he is when it comes to compromise, thus limiting his chances of working in the White House. Whether or not he wins is now in the hands of the voters and only time can tell what will happen.

Big Thanks to Youtube channels Wisecrack (https://www.youtube.com/user/thugnotes) and The Game Theorists (https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthewPatrick13) from which most of my information is from and thanks to the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com) for extra information present in this article.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/opinion/sunday/addicted-to-distraction.html?_r=0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlptgqP_PEA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6PcQ1Be5ak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8St9oOnkGU

article by Sophie R. H. Jepsen