A TV President in a TV World
Mastery of information networks is the new meritocracy
Maybe it’s not causal. Trump may not be picking his cabinet members because he saw them on TV.
But it’s definitely correlational.
Mehmet Oz. Linda McMahon. Pete Hegseth. Sean Duffy. Steven Cheung. These are all entertainment people; talk show hosts, cable news personalities, wrestling czars. Elon Musk owns a social media company where he’s one of the major influencers.
To say the least, there’s something going on here.
Trump experiences the world through a television screen, that’s one explanation, and there’s plenty to support that idea.
But it’s a “TV world” for the rest of us, too. We humans have built an infotainment complex of gargantuan proportions, one that runs on outrage and misinformation and handily silos us into information bubbles. One that, above all, tells us a story. A story we curate and co-create, based on getting more of what we want to hear.
Different strokes to move the world
For sure, many of Trump’s picks are not part of the entertainment zeitgeist. Those who haven’t worked in TV, wrestling, or otherwise have some kind of influential celebrity are people he’s already familiar with…
