Trump: “I deliver ratings!”

Trump is now transforming the battle for the United States presidency into a TV reality show. Trump’s allegations against illegal Mexican immigrants, his insults directed toward Fox News’s Megyn Kelly and his confrontation with Univision’s Jorge Ramos were bound to get some attention from the media.

Trump delivers ratings; Trump is on television nonstop.

Common belief and widespread view of the media was that Trump’s personal insults and nasty remarks, his conversion of the political speech into a form of self-involved stand-up against the establishment would doom his chances for the nomination. Trump has proven and still is proving everyone wrong. Trump may well become the next president of the United States. People are fed up with the traditional politicians, which are nothing else than mouthpieces that cannot get anything done.

The Republican Party created Donald Trump.

The Republican politicians made a lot of promises to their base and never kept them. They have kept their most conservative supporters at a very high level of angry mobilization, exploiting anxieties about demographic and social change. They kept pledging they would really and truly repeal Obamacare, even when they knew they did not have the votes. Trump is the revenge of the party’s non-insiders who are tired of being used and lied to.

Like it or not, Trump is there to stay and whatever the Republican Party does, the Party’s future depends on Trump. He runs as an independent, the Republicans have no shot at the presidency and Trump is increasing his chances. Many of the Democratic voters feel the same way as the Republicans voters about the establishment and the traditional politicians. Trump appeals to the masses.

Trump may well be at the origin of a formidable mass movement.

Trump has certainly gotten further faster than any of his Republican opponents and he is already fighting against the entire field of his possible Democratic opponent to the presidency. Trump is sitting atop some broad uprising rebellion of an endlessly increasing majority of people having to live from one paycheck to the other and being denied any chance of a brighter future. Trump’s visibility is his best weapon, the product of a new mass media circular reality: Celebrities bring ratings and the resulting attention they get further enhances their fame.

Trump’s unique contribution to the 2016 presidential race has been and still is to achieve a complete fusion of the culture of celebrity to politics. Television is a business like any other and nowhere is the tension between financial and public imperatives more obvious than in the massive media coverage of the Trump spectacular ascension. It is all about ratings and, plane, helicopter, arrogance, insults; Trump his bringing all the right props to the show.

JMD

JMD is an enthusiastic writer, columnist and social activist who most enjoys evolving in complex interactive situations.

jmdlive@live.ca

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