The 2016 Sham

We seem to have to have a sham every four years.

[T]wo candidates with the worst favorability ratings in over a generation are poised to be the final options for the most consequential job in the entire world. How did we get here?

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Whoever the news media say is important early on typically becomes the most important. This leads to a feedback loop that anoints the “frontrunner” in the “invisible primary.”

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The “invisible primary" is broadly defined as a candidate's ability to raise money, win over party leaders and generate media coverage all before any campaigning—to say nothing of voting—takes place. Clinton, as a former first lady, senator and high-profile secretary of state, won this primary hands down.

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By focusing on funds raised, the invisible primary heavily favors [money in politics], and by racking up superdelegates, it heavily favors the [establishment politics] -- all in a process that is, by design, undemocratic. The psychological effect of Clinton’s delegate lead was seen in delegate totals the media echoed all throughout February and March that gave the reader the impression Clinton was up seven to one rather than even or slightly ahead [of Bernie Sanders].

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Sanders’ insurgent candidacy ignited small donors to help propel him to comparable totals. The media coverage followed this, whereas in Clinton’s case it largely preceded it.

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In our postmodern media-saturated society, so long as your brand remained in the news and people talked about you, you would end up the big winner. [...] Just as with absolute numbers, the positive or negative nature of the media coverage is of no importance. What is important is the distance from 0 -- or irrelevance -- one is at any given time.

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According to a study by the New York Times, Donald Trump has received over $1.8 billion worth of “free media.” By contrast, Clinton has received $746 million and Sanders $321 million.

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Another study that focused solely on network coverage showed Sanders receiving 6 percent of the coverage Trump did on network news in 2015, and 16.5 percent that of Clinton. This is a very difficult hill to climb for any candidate. [...] Most people, especially the older voters Clinton wins by high margins, still get their information from the talking heads who occupy our nightly news broadcasts.

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Bias is always difficult to discern, but there are a few examples. [...] One of the more obvious cases was when Clinton began to push back against Sanders for his support of single payer.

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The Washington Post ran three separate pieces bashing Sanders’ proposal in as many days while Vox and the Huffington Post quickly followed suit. [...] Another example, which went viral, was after the Flint debate when the Washington Post ran 16 negative articles about Sanders in 16 hours.

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Alternative outlets (including this one) such as Salon, the Intercept and FAIR attempted to offset some of that bias, but the inertia of the inevitability narrative was ultimately too great to combat.

  Alternet

And I think this author (Adam Johnson, whom I respect and follow) is ignoring a huge fact here: alternative outlets (such as Alternet) garner a minuscule share of the public viewer/readership.

In the hours after the Brussels attack [...] that left 31 dead and more than 200 injured, NBC, ABC and Fox News all had Trump on their morning programs.

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This bizarre series of episodes was corporate media’s Trump coverage essentialized—a combination of disgust and actual serious deference to a man who, objectively, has no idea what he is talking about.

But then, neither do his supporters, so that couldn't possibly hurt him in the polls.

This isn't the first article I've seen that lays the major blame for Trump's success onto campaign media coverage. But I'm not sure that actually accounts for it. It encourages and reinforces it, of course. But the fact is, like Ronald Reagan and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Trump has been widely public in entertainment media for years. Americans are notoriously ignorant politically but ravenous entertainment junkies.  I might add here that Trump supporters/ultra-conservative voters are wildly illogical and contradictory in their own judgments, Red State hatred of "Hollywood" politics coupled with hero worship of Reagan, Schwarzenegger, Heston, and the like, being just one instance.

The result is two polarizing candidates and an increasingly cynical public heading into what will be one of the more unpredictable, and perfunctory elections in modern history.

Yee-hah! Spectacle Democracy - American style.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.