What everyone is missing in the rise of Trump
People are freaking out about Trump. Washington insiders, liberal thinkers and most of all press are falling all over themselves to stop his rise. But unless they look themselves in the mirror, ask hard questions and change tactics he’s heading to the White House. How is this possible and what can they do?
Donald Trump’s rise comes partly from his refreshingly rebellious personality, his willingness to speak his own truth and his three big issues, immigration, trade and the terror threat from insane Muslims. Those issues are real to the people who support him. And no politician acceptable to the power elite is willing to put themselves on the line and discuss them truthfully. Lawlessness on the boarder is scary, millions of Muslims are flooding into Europe, and even NATO now says ISIS is among their ranks, and, being honest, the trade deals of the United States benefit the commuter programmers of Silicon Valley, the scientists of Cambridge and film makers of Hollywood not the working the man. All these things are real and legitimate concerns. And they need to be discussed frankly.
But that isn’t the real problem for those in power. The real problem is the rise of mass market Internet media. In the past, the inequities of America could be glossed over by a press and media system controlled by the wealthy few. A glossy view of the world could be manipulated to sooth the angry mob. Those days are gone. Today the angry mob has its own printing press and they can communicate with millions of their fellow travels instantly.
Donald Trump is a creator of that world, he comes from conspiracy culture of late night radio, far out Internet sites and Infowars. People are shocked when praises Putin, talks about demilitarization, or says he’ll treat Palestine and Israel as equals but to the world of conspiracy media that is their language. He’s appeared on Alex Jones, is loved by Briebart.com, is a birther and panders to the truther movement. And that is a much larger world than the traditional media would like you to think. Those media outlets have power and their followers are incredibly active in social media.
The press, controlled as they are, to follow a line laid out by out-of-touch Brooklyn-based liberal editors, Wall Street Money, and bosses like the Koch’s, Sheldon Adelson and Rupert Murdock refuse to take anything from this world seriously. Yet these forces don’t know what its like to live in a lilly-white town transformed overnight by immigration. Or see whole industries extinguished with the swipe of a pen. That’s a problem. It makes people feel lied to when they don’t learn about things they can see with their own eyes. As a result undiscovered things like the lawlessness on the boarder, and far out conspiracies become more important to the common man than the tripe covered on the nightly news which — being honest — is glossed over half-truths. Plus, these issues are much sexier when you get the full story and the truth is harder.
Vice Magazine does it right. And Trump just plays it to the hilt. Crazy truth gets people talking. But the mainstream press misses it because they’re ignoring a whole genre of news and media that now has a massive reach and is a part of a national conversation they are not in. That needs to change. The media needs to change how they are working and cover this world. They need to treat the craziness fairly and prove theses stories right or wrong on their own terms. They need to start giving us news without lobbyist and PR filters. Trump will lose if the press admits that they are losing and start to cover our world as it is.
If they don’t Trump will win and the Alex Jones’ of the world will be laughing all the way to bank.
