Dec 21, 2016
The Electoral College Result Proved That The Media Is Fundamentally Clueless About American Politics
Remember back during the presidential primaries, when the media fixated incessantly on the far-flung idea that a sizable segment of GOP convention delegates would rebel against Trump? The idea was that discontent with Trump among the Republican coalition was so deep and pervasive that it would of course result in some kind of mass display of dissent — potentially even denying Trump the nomination. But this never happened; the requisite delegates lined up behind Trump, and aside from one or two inconsequential outbursts (see: Sen. Mike Lee’s theatrics) nothing of note happened to blunt Trump’s ascendance in Cleveland.
Remember during the general election, when our vaunted pundit class screamed about how Republicans were woefully disunited, and that revulsion to Trump would ensure that the party remained hopelessly fractured, negating any chance that Trump could ultimately win? Yes, that was a a real trope — the idea that “Never Trump” was such a robust movement that it would actually have the wherewithal to preclude Trump’s victory.
And then, finally, remember when a loony-tunes idea was floated in the media that some critical mass of Republican electors might abandon their prescribed duties and defect from Trump at the Electoral College?
Yeah… none of that ended up happening. Here are some things that did end up happening:
- A sizable segment of Democratic convention delegates rebelled against Hillary Clinton, staging walkouts, drowning out speakers, and causing a greater overall ruckus than at any convention since 1968
- The Democratic Party was comparatively far more “enthused” and fractured than the GOP, and this likely cost Hillary victory the general election
- Some electors did rebel and defect, but they rebelled and defected from Hillary, not Trump. (Two electors defected from Trump, but it wasn’t anything close to a far-reaching movement despite the media hype.) Five electors defected from Hillary (4 in Washington St., 1 in Hawaii) and another three attempted to defect (1 in Colorado, 1 in Minnesota, 1 in Maine) but were coerced and/or expelled.
What should this tell us? The main thing that the media focused on incessantly in each phase of the campaign wasn’t just wrong — the exact inverse of it was proven true. The reasons for this total lack of foresight are many. One would be that “Never Trump” Republicans were drastically over-represented in elite spheres, and one “elite sphere” is the national media, based in Washington D.C. and Manhattan — two places where there was some observable “Never Trump” electoral effect and where many of its leading lights reside.
Another reason: because most people in the national media lean Democratic/liberal — they’re not terribly ideological, mind you, but that’s where they ultimately fall — they find it fascinating to dwell on Republican protest/insurgent movements while neglecting left-wing insurgent movements. They mostly find the latter boring and predictable. Recall the dismissive attitude that the elite media initially displayed toward Occupy Wall Street, only covering it when it clearly gained nationwide traction and they were sort of forced to pay attention. Meanwhile, every time 20 people showed up at some demonstration loosely labeled “Tea Party,” the national media were there in droves, hyping its significance to high heaven.
Right-wing populism is definitely interesting and ought to be covered, but it should be obvious at this point that the media attributes vastly outsized significance to right-wing populist movements and inflates the appeal/threat of these factions. They do this because liberal audiences are exercised by watching TV and seeing clips of Trump supporters or Tea Party activists running wild. That’s the kind of stuff that gets them to click salacious Huffington Post headlines and watch Rachel Maddow.
Such outlets would prefer to give comparatively less attention to things like Occupy and the Sanders campaign, which expose fissures on the Liberal/Left. Focusing on the Zany Crazy Gun-Totin’ Republicans doesn’t risk bringing to bear any fissures or discomfiting self-criticism, so they’d much rather just fill up their airwaves/websites with that easy OMG GOP stuff.
This instinct leads to dulled analytical acuity, and ultimately the creation of “narratives” which falsely postulate that Republican delegates or electors could launch an insurrection. If anyone is launching an insurrection, it’s going to be left-wing types, not right-wing types. There are some exceptions, but for the most part right-wing types are authoritarian-minded — deferential to authority and innately respectful of rules/protocols. Meanwhile, left-wing types are much more averse to rules/protocols and willing to flout them when it suits their purposes. (Note that these are descriptive statements, not normative ones.)
But because it’s more juicy to dwell endlessly on intra-Republican fighting rather than cover left-wing grassroots movements — which have been around forever, so the liberal journalists assume, and aren’t all that interesting — they concoct narratives out of whole cloth about what Republicans are capable of. So they think there’s going to be a rebellion at the convention, or at the ballot box, or at the Electoral College, and it never happens. What happens is the left-wingers rebel. For anyone who knows a lick about the temperamental characteristics of the Left and Right, this would be easily predictable. But it’s ignored because our media is incorrigible and fundamentally clueless about real-world politics.
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