Can you feel the populist revolution spreading across the political landscape of America, reshaping the consciousness of both Left and Right?
Can you see it, can you hear it?
No?
That's hardly surprising. Here we are possibly witnessing the most significant political realignment since the populism movements of the late 19th Century and New Deal era, yet the media have all but blacked it out. But as mainstream media is so beholden to salacious, low-brow journalism and ratings-based advertising revenue their failure is understandable. To investigate this further please read on below the fold.
News cycles are driven by three things; eyeballs, ear drums and sponsors, and the goal of media is to create the optimum mix of all three. By appealing to broad, engaged audiences the media drives ratings and demographics that its sponsors will pay top-dollar to reach.
But it turns out that the best way to consistently “bag” the largest audiences is to spin the news around the lowest-common denominators. These include things like drama, hate, conflict and the desire to have one's beliefs validated.
In this way the media has redefined “fair and balanced” in terms of audiences, not issues. In doing so the mainstream news has become progressively more and more skewed to the point it is difficult to distinguish from advertising and entertainment. As a result, these market-driven news cycles have created an atmosphere of Barnum and Bailey journalism.
Of course, this is hardly a new approach. The tabloids have been doing it since the dawn of the printed word, they're just honest about it. So when something genuinely newsworthy comes along, like a shift in populist political consciousness, the media totally flubs the message in their blind pursuit of irrelevant journalistic objectives.
Consider the media frenzy over Donald Trump. The media can't get enough of him and the more outrageous the better. To his credit, Trump knows this and plays the media with the skill of an expert carnival barker.
Of course the media should know better and process his messages objectively, not emotionally. But they simply can't escape the overwhelming financial attraction of eye balls and ad dollars. As a result, Trump grabbed the media spot-light but the messages getting through don't tell us much about what it all means.
Here's why this matters, and why the media is missing this unprecedented populist realignment in society's political attitudes. Because rather than explore why Trump's candidacy has become such a phenomenon, and how it reflects on society's shifting attitudes, the mainstream media remains fixated on his endless stream of outrageous quips and swipes. After all, comparing immigrants to rapists or suggesting that Carly Fiorina can't win because of her looks makes for just the sort of salacious copy that inflames audiences, drives ratings and delights sponsors.
Trump has effectively brought the appeal of reality TV to a presidential election, and in doing so hit the ratings jackpot. And while tabloid news is all very entertaining it ignores the alarming political shifts his candidacy represents, especially within the minds of conservative voters.
To liberals Trump is the epitome of radical conservatism, the inevitable outcome of the right-wing media's hateful and divisive rhetoric. Yet from the perspective of conservatives who support him, the outsider Trump reflects their discontent with mainstream politics and special-interest fueled agendas.
We know this because he's successfully positioned himself as the unpredictable and uncontrollable anti-candidate, a political monster that has turned on the elite conservative forces that created him. In doing so he has become a hero to millions of rank and file conservative voters who love him for it. It's also why he's bullet-proof, because no matter what Trump says or does his popularity increases all the more. He's even immune to attacks within his own party. Because normally any time a conservative candidate strays from the party-line they simply brand him or her as out-of-touch and that's the end of that. But not with Trump. He gets to say whatever he wants, whether it echoes the “official” conservative platform or not.
And it is here where the seeds of a populist realignment, a revolution in political priorities, begin to take root. Because mixed within Trump's red-meat, click-bait rhetoric are some breathtakingly populist positions that conflict with contemporary conservative ideology. Consider the following quotes:
"If you can’t take care of your sick in the country, forget it, it’s all over. ... I believe in universal health care." CNN Larry King October 1999.
Or, more recently: CEO pay is “a total and complete joke.” Face the Nation September 2015.
“We're going to be reducing taxes for the middle class, but for the hedge fund guys, they're going to be paying up.” Face the Nation September 2015.
Pause for a moment to consider that these words were spoken by not just a Republican, but the republican presidential front runner. In any normal conservative universe Trump would be summarily tarred and feathered for suggesting such apostasy, driven from the party for being a RINO (Republican in Name Only), or a “squishy” or worse, a liberal!
Instead, his popularity among conservative voters goes up, not down as hoped by the Republican powers-that-be. It certainly isn't for a lack of trying. The elite of conservative politicians, media and special-interests are going crazy trying to neutralize this monster, this outsider with the audacity to usurp political influence they have long considered bought and paid for. So when the conservative A-Team with all the resources and home-court advantage at its disposal can't unseat this pretender to their throne, well, that speaks volumes.
This acceptance of Trump's populist language by conservative voters represents not simply a fissure in contemporary conservative ideology, an inconvenient crack in the conservative platform, but a chasm right through the center that's dangerous enough to launch a populist revolution, one with the capacity to establish beyond a shadow of doubt that the “emperor” needs a new tailor. Because ideas like universal health care and raising taxes on the rich strike at very heart of the supply-side mantra. Such populist realignment of conservative thought represents a nightmare to the elite, special interest-fueled power structures that are the ultimate insurance policy for the 1%.
What's really significant with this is that the willingness of average conservative voters to consider these ideas is evidence that the reliable bogeymen of taxes, Obamacare and socialism are losing some of their capacity to control political dialogues and inflame the conservative electorate. The threat this presents to the conservative hegemony is that it may take hold and like an invading cancer attack the body politic from within.
Sure Trump has already reversed himself on some of his earlier populist positions, and he'll likely do so again before it's all over. What's more, Trump's brand of "populism" is fueled not by a frustrated electorate, but by an angry mob. Clearly he's a dangerous demagogue with a frighteningly genuine shot at the White House.
What's significant here is that his candidacy is driven not by conservative special-interests, but by an uncontrollable mega-ego that feeds off hate-induced madness sweeping the ranks of conservative voters. It is this break with the conservative power structure that makes him a populist force, unsavory as it may be.
Predictably, the mainstream media remains focused on the superficiality of this political drama instead of the underlying shifts in political attitudes it represents. These are the stories that really matter, because the seeds of populist movements begin with deep frustration. This is what the media should be reporting.
Yet this is just the "Right-side" of emerging populist attitudes. Because over on the Left populist ideology is undergoing it's own reevaluation with the unlikely rise of Bernie Sanders. His spontaneous, improbable and populist-centrist candidacy has captured the imaginations of millions from the opposite side of the political spectrum.
Here is a man, hardly a brand name political figure in liberal politics and something of an outsider to the Democratic Party, who has rocketed to political prominence and is a genuine contender for the Democratic nomination. Even more extraordinary is that he calls himself a Democratic Socialist.
Yes, that's right. Bernie has the audacity to build his platform upon one of the dreaded “isms” that for over half a century has been considered instant political death to any politician naive enough to evoke them. Because the fears of the Cold War and the threat of nuclear Armageddon in the mid and late 20th Century have programmed society to view communism and socialism as the ultimate threats to democracy and capitalism. So although it has been nearly 30 years since the fall of the Soviet Union, anything that smells even remotely populist is quickly denounced as an attack upon the foundations of a democratic society.
Yet Bernie not only introduced the idea of socialism back into mainstream politics, but has the political gall to link it with democracy though the idea of Democratic Socialism. Nor is he the slightest bit apologetic about it. Rather, he continues to drive home his ideas without even a hint of political spin.
When they call him on being a socialist he sticks to his vision of fair political representation and economic participation, politics be damned. When the press tries to bait him into making personal attacks against his opponents, he refuses to bite. His courageous honesty has won him the hearts and votes of millions, and in doing so has re-introduced a brand of populism that's been absent from the political landscape for almost a century.
Bernie's influence has made such an impact that, like Trump, even if he doesn’t win the White House his candidacy may fundamentally alter political priorities. For example, would Hillary have come out against Keystone if millions of voters in her party weren’t “feeling the Bern?"
Consider that establishment politicians constantly perform electoral algebra where the two leading independent variables are special-interest money and votes. They do this in attempt to identify the greatest source of political influence, which is usually special-interest money given its preeminent role in the political process.
But for Hillary, the populist momentum around Bernie's candidacy has changed both the equation and the solution. So much so that Hillary has even come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in conflict with President Obama.
It is hard to imagine how or why special-interest donors would persuade her to make this radical platform shift. That leaves only one thing, Bernie and the populist movement he launched. And with over a year remaining in the election who knows where these new political attitudes may take us.
Just consider what occurred when Bernie recently visited Liberty University, ground-zero for conservative evangelical thought. Given the strident attitudes of this audience, beliefs that deeply conflict with Progressive ideology on numerous issues, any typical politician would have felt compelled to become, well, political.
But not Bernie. Instead he proceeded to cast populist objectives in a moral light, directly challenging the most sacred beliefs of conservative Christianity. It well might have been perceived as an attack on their faith, and in their own “house” no less. Considering the current emotionally-charged, partisan climate of politics and religion we could understandably have expected him to be branded as a threat to the very existence of the Christian faith.
But that didn't happen. Instead they listened, and they engaged with him respectfully. Maybe he didn't change many minds that night, but they allowed him to challenge their beliefs. This alone was truly extraordinary considering that Liberty University will launch the political careers of future leaders, some of which may rise to the highest levels of Government and promote policies that directly conflict with Bernie's platform.
Yet at least one committed evangelical pastor heard Bernie's message, and he got it. For in comparing Bernie to no less than John the Baptist this pastor equated Bernie's message with the Christian calling to bring justice to “the least of us.”
So while Trump parts the seas of conservatism to reveal populist motivations that weren’t supposed to be there, Bernie exorcises the ghosts of the Cold War, quieting the remaining reverberations of McCarthy's witch trials. At the same time there is a glimmer of possibility that Evangelical Christianity may be rediscovering its faith and questioning the spiritual relevance of the Prosperity Gospel.
So the real story in this election cycle, the one that mainstream media has largely glossed over, is that society, including both Left and Right, is embracing populist political ideas that until very recently would have been unimaginable. Although the impact of this shift in political thought may not change our near-term reality, with the House remaining in the hands of conservatives, the Democrats retaining the White House and the Senate up for grabs, we may very well be turning the corner on the special-interest fueled, trickle-down mania of the past three-plus decades. If this is the case then the influences on politicians and the outcomes of future political dramas may be poised to take an unprecedented turn.
Author's Note: Some of the ideas in this Diary were drawn from a larger paper that will soon be released. If you found the Diary interesting and would like to read the paper I will make a relevant post on this blog when released or you may follow me on twitter. Thank-You.