Something to think about (Media and Poll Performance)

In a recent article (which I could find if someone were really interested), Nate Silver pointed out that in this election, the candidate who is getting the most media attention tends to go down in the polls. This mostly shows that this election is almost all about negative news.

A few days ago it occurred to me that I have not seen a single criticism of either of the major candidates that was not an attack on their character. There’s no discussion about “the issues” going on. The only thing that seems to matter in this election is the misdeeds of each candidate.

You haven’t heard a single person suggesting that building a wall to keep out Mexicans, aligning closely with Putin, deporting all Muslims and turning our back on NATO are bad positions on “the issues?”

You haven’t seen the analysis of Trump’s tax plan that show it will cause a multi-billion dollar deficit, and mostly benefit the rich?

Similarly, criticizing Hillary on her email and voting for the Iraq Resolution are not attacks on her character.

Haven’t been looking/listening in earnest, but ISTM that in recent days I’ve heard more press report on Trump statements, immediately saying variants on, “That is a lie.”

Really going to be interesting, what this election says about the impact of contributions and media. Hillary is dominating in raised, as was Jeb. But that hasn’t seemed to move the needle as yet.

After a year of limitless free PR for Trump, and failing to call out his worst excesses in the name of “neutrality”, how much effect could some last minute media efforts have?

If Trump wins, I suggest that might be a good start to dispelling the longterm viability of the American form of democracy - the same way Communism had more appeal in theory than in practice.

Neither of those issues indicate her policy as President. Like Trump’s Wall, kicking out Muslims, cutting taxes or whatever he said last night.

Calling Trump a racist for wanting to build a wall or deport all Muslims is not a discussion of the issues.

In contrast, when Sanders still seemed to be a viable candidate, I saw lots of very good discussions about his specific plans and his platform in general. But once the primaries were over, everything seems to have been boiled down to “Trump is a racist liar and Clinton is a lying crook.”

I’d like to jump in on this, since this seems to me to be why Clinton is losing ground in the polls. I’ll agree with you that discussing the things that you mention qualify a discussion of the issues and that the positions Trump takes are bad positions. But I hear maybe a person or two in the media discuss these positions only occasionally. Instead I’ve been hearing all about Clinton’s health, her email, her foundation, and how she continues to lose ground. When I do hear about Trump it’s not a serious discussion on what would really happen if we built a border wall, banned entry of Muslims into the US, or left NATO in favor of Putin. Instead all I hear about on the news is how he is “moderating” on immigration, reaching out to black voters, or maybe some silly discussion about how his physician was dragged down to a limo to sign a note Big Lebowski style. No serious discussions are going on CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and many others. If those conversation are going on they’re being drowned out by all the other stuff I mentioned.

Hillary’s campaign never stopped talking about the issues. They also criticized Trump a lot – they can do both.

It’s possible that’s because the Trump campaign is treating the press like crap. You don’t respect the press and they won’t respect you.

Who wants policy? That involves numbers and history. Gross. Now conspiracy theories and innuendo, that’s the good stuff.

Thread titled edited for clarity.

That’s pretty much it. Controversy, conspiracy theories, craziness, sex – that’s what sells. The media is primarily about two things – making money, which means providing entertainment to a mass audience that isn’t particularly bright, and if push comes to shove, supporting the established power base because they’re part of it. Actual politics and policy issues are considered to have low entertainment value and are pretty boring to this crowd.

There’s nothing much wrong with the mechanisms of democracy itself, but clearly something is wrong when a mindless demagogue like Trump can become a viable presidential candidate. I think the above provides a clue. A commercial money-driven media conglomerate has utterly failed in its critical mission to foster an informed public, and the overwhelming influence of money in politics has created a dysfunctional corporatist political system that does a very poor job of serving the people. Essentially, Trump is popular because so many people are dissatisfied with the failures of their current form of governance, but thanks to the failures of media, they don’t really know why. Virtually all the reasons ever given for supporting Trump are stupidly wrong, demonstrably wrong, even delusional. It’s not a matter of differing values, or liberal vs. conservative. The man is a know-nothing, self-serving idiot.

Maybe instead of democracy, I should be condemning capitalism. But I found myself questioning your description of the “critical mission” of the media. Who imposed that mission? “If it bleeds it leads” has been the rule for decades. People want to be entertained, not educated.

I realize the trope that democracy is the worst - except for all others. But we’ve got terribly low voter turnout, and there is a real risk that a majority of those who turn out may chose Trump - either as a tantrum, or for entertainment. Of course, our elected officials’ abdication of their responsibilities has contributed to people thinking they might as well break the thing than try to fix it.

When democracy devolves into a dictatorship of the lowest common denominator, there is likely plenty of blame to go around. But to say the majority of voters who are angry and ignorant folk shouldn’t get to decide who runs things, smacks of paternalism/elitism.

What a depressing mess.

I think that elitism is not always a bad thing. The long term solution would be to improve the education of the general public. Let’s take the current demographic split of the white male voting population and their level of support for Clinton. Clinton is doing better with college educated white males than those without a college education. I see two ways of looking at this split.

  1. Clinton really would be better for the whole country (not just those with an education) than Trump, and those with an education are better able to figure that out due to the benefits of that education. Because the more educated population is able to better filter the BS out of the campaign, they support Clinton in higher numbers.

  2. Trump really would be better at improving the lives of those with less education than Clinton, and since Trump would do a better job at helping them than Clinton, a vote for Trump is the correct choice.

Obviously I believe the first scenario is what is really going on. To believe the second scenario implies that somehow doing what’s right for the blue collar worker / average Joe / “real” American, etc is somehow different than doing what’s right for the well educated, liberals, minorities or any other group that tends to vote Democratic.

In reality, I think that with the exception of the .01% of the wealthiest people, the policies of the Democratic Party will help everyone and those of the Republican Party would hurt everyone. Tax cuts for the wealthy, kicking out all undocumented immigrants, ignoring global warming for the benefit of big coal and big oil, decreasing or eliminating regulations that keep our food, water and medicine safe, and many other similar policies would be all be a detriment to your average Trump supporter. If I tell them that they’re wrong that might make me elitist, but it doesn’t make me wrong. It means that I really do know better than they do.

“2. Trump really would be better at improving the lives of those with less education than Clinton…”
On what facts are you basing this?

I don’t believe that myself. I assume, however, that Trump supporters genuinely believe that. If they don’t genuinely believe that Trump would be better for the country than Clinton would be, that must mean they support him for some other reason. I can only guess as to what those other reasons might be, but I’m assuming that the things that Clinton mentioned that make someone “deplorable” would be high on the list. Things like sexism, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and other assorted bigotries.

Unless you’ve got access to alternative universes and a time machine, I don’t know how you can claim any more than that you think Clinton’s policies are better for everyone than Trump’s.

Do you believe we would all be better off after 4 years of a President Trump that dismantled the EPA as we would under a President Clinton that didn’t?

Here is what I think most educated believe would happen. This is a link to a picture of Los Angeles in 1968 compared to 2005. I’m also linking a recent picture of present day Beijing.

http://www.greenbuildinglawblog.com/tags/la/

This is what we would be looking at under President Trump and his proposed destruction of the EPA and getting rid of job killing regulations. Would it be worth it to you to go back to those days just so a few people in West Virginia can have some low paying and unsafe jobs in the coal mines or making cheaper cars that release such high levels of pollution?