Carly Fiorina had it exactly right when she dismissed Donald Trump's insults with a simple "I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said." So did every immigrant. And every Muslim. And every African American. And every Asian. And every prisoner of war. And every citizen of the world who watches in disbelief as the Trumpet bays out daily fictions about the state of the nation and his dreams of expelling a community here, a religion there.
The fictions being trumpeted by the faux presidential candidate are not complicated. They seldom rise above the level of what a drunk in a bar might emit after a few. They are not much more complicated than the taunts one might hear adolescent boys in a schoolyard toss at each other. They do not require explication. They speak for themselves, and for the shameless huckster who utters them.
Trumpbait
So why do they matter, if they matter at all? Two reasons. One, the media pretends they do. Trumpbait has driven major networks and television hosts to gorge themselves to death as they swim upstream against the tide of cynical, inflammatory rhetoric, and then spawn useless enterprises like Chris Matthews' documentary, Citizen Trump. Matthews, who seldom asks a question he does not first answer, thought the public needed a better understanding of every false note from the Trumpet, as if the first dose of cacophony wasn't enough. Two, the star billing being given (yet again) to the fictions peddled by manipulative candidates, and promoted by the media is an abandonment of the role of the so-called Fourth Estate. Every minute of airtime given to the playing and replaying of the Trumpet is time denied to other real candidates and real discussion.
Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote Discovery of America.
Tocqueville, that early observer of American democracy, noted:
"There is not a country in the world where man takes possession of the future more confidently, or feels with more pride that his intelligence makes him master of the universe, which he can reshape to his liking." Tocqueville was talking about American society as a whole. But today he could be talking about the likes of Trump. With irony.
Trump deserves to be ridiculed. While thousands turn out for his rallies, thousands more loathe his self-promotion, his lies, his ignorance, and his bluster. He is right in wanting to be compared to P.T. Barnum. Except he isn't the clown; he is the ringmaster of what has become a media circus. He has the media elephants behaving exactly as he would wish them too, jumping at his every utterance, while he rakes in the poll numbers that they help build.
There is something very disingenuous about media personalities who, as they salivate over the Trump boost to their ratings, ask themselves--and others--to explain his failure to fade. They need only look in the mirror. It is impossible to escape the nightmare of constant Trump footage and what passes for reporting on the GOP presidential race today on most channels.
"You may find this footage disturbing."
It is late, but not too late for the media to show some judgment in determining the news that is fit to print--or to air. TV hosts make a habit of warning viewers before they run footage that depicts violence or gore: "You may find these images disturbing," they say.
Yet we have had months of disturbing images of Trump invading our living rooms. Relentless media coverage has normalized his bigotry, his racism, his misogyny, and his disregard for facts. Every American child who aspires to be President of the United States is being taught that lies and swagger get you crowds of people who do not question what they are being sold, and cameras who dwell lovingly on the trash being told.
Abroad, anyone watching American TV sees the airtime accorded to the Trump campaign as a sign that the Ugly American is back.
Another Tocqueville insight was this: that "the perpetual change at the heart of a democracy tends to reshape the face of language endlessly, just as it reshapes the face of business . . . Democratic nations love change for its own sake. This is apparent in language as much as in politics."
As a new American, my hope is that the media gets over its addiction to the political pornography of the Trump campaign before they help destroy, not just our language and our democracy, but our expectation that those who aspire to lead also have a moral compass that works.