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| Jim Carrey's artwork, wisdom |
There was always a "din" outside of that, voices from the fringe, so excited in tone, irrational so much.
The Trump phenomenon got the media intoxicated. The competition for eyeballs did not used to be so intense. The people who could reach a broad audience with their voices had to go through vetting. They most likely had a pedigree including a prestige college out East. It was just the way of the world (or of the U.S.). We grumbled sometimes but didn't rebel.
"The news" could be boring. This was in the days when news was more in the realm of public service than profit generator. The media tech revolution enabled "niche" programming that could be mined successfully. Roger Ailes wanted to create something like Fox News in the '70s. It was not practicable. So there was no blow horn available for someone like Sean Hannity. People of that stripe were marginalized. They could be branded eccentric.
Can you imagine TV audiences of the '70s taking seriously someone like Jeanine Pirro? "My, who is this odd, unstable person? Change the channel."
The proliferation of media to staggering degrees has created a numb reaction among us. So that nothing surprises us. We hear coarse language that would have made jaws drop in a previous time.
Sam Kinison, precursor
Changes do not happen overnight. So the trend away from the old norm of assumed propriety was not easy for many of us to notice. We are immersed in our daily tasks, our daily struggles. In the '80s we noticed certain comedians getting away with a coarse presentation on TV. It raised eyebrows but it didn't take long for us to get rather accustomed. "I guess there are bigger problems," we might reason. Sam Kinison represented a new wave.
The network evening news was still there as a home base. It would remind us of the truly proper perspective from which to make judgments on public issues. That element continues to exist today - it just has to fight so much harder to assert itself.
And it's trying now, just as it tried in the closing stages of the 2016 campaign. Really, this element tried sounding the alarm, to grab us by the shoulders and shake us, to state the obvious about Donald Trump being a cruel novelty, amusing sometimes but fundamentally dangerous. And surely us American citizens, sensible as we are, would be properly reminded to take action. In the end we'd recognize the likes of Hannity and Pirro as oddball sideshows.
But no. The cavalry arrived too late. The media denizens were happy to see their profit margins ooze by the shock quality of the Trump campaign, the Trump circus.
It was hard to switch away from the old Morton Downey Jr. TV show. It was a partner with Kinison with the '80s breakthrough. So the loud, raw and undisciplined voices were getting through to the masses. Had we been merely idly amused, fine.
The Trump campaign of 2016 was another breakthrough, sort of a tsunami. The shock-oriented stuff was now influencing American political inclinations, so that the old notion of laughing off someone like Trump was not assumed. His sheer ability to get attention worked in the new age of a thick jungle of media, where we are challenged trying to break through with a machete. Everyone starts a podcast today, maybe their dog too, and they all think they can get an audience.
Trump with his cynically orchestrated bravado and entertainment skills, honed through an entertainment show, got on the political stage, or on the downward escalator, and now we can look back and feel flummoxed. Amazingly he is within reach of re-election even. Why not? We are no longer shocked by anything. It's an age now where limitless porn is a click away. Why should we be surprised by anything?
And by the same token, why should we elect politicians who bore us? Who would simply "do the job" and do so with a resume of meaningful experience. Why get bored with that, when Trump is out there charging hard in the political realm, like a bull in a china shop. What a dead-on comparison. And we seem to want to take another bite.
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| David Brooks |
David Brooks of the New York Times represents the old, august media that used to shepherd our sensibilities. I read his current column and heavens, I can read his mind. It's as if he's wondering, "Has the time come where I really have to write this, to state the obvious?" OK it has an "emperor has no clothes" quality.
Should Brooks even have to write, as if it's a stroke of insight, in the fourth year of the Trump presidency, that the man simply violates codes of decency? Really? Has the public not been able to see the forest for the trees? For that matter, why am I having to spill out such thoughts, as if I too must feel a need to state the obvious.
Brooks writes that until four years ago, there was a "floor of decency." He writes "even when people did bad things, they at least tried to pretend that they were good, that they operated according to the basic values of society."
We took this "floor" of behavior for granted. Heavens, my late parents certainly did. The floor was assumed "like the sidewalk you step on when you walk down the street," Brooks wrote.
Trump comes along and begins teasing opponents with junior high-level wisecracks about their appearance. And on and on. And we take seriously his re-election efforts, like he actually has a chance to "tweet" the next four years for a national audience. Even on Sunday.
Brooks recalled thinking that the nation would rise up "in moral revulsion." But as we all know, and as Brooks articulated, "nothing happened." Nothing ever happens to reign in the preposterous or even illegal stuff. We ought to be scared as hell.
My podcast for Oct. 31
I invite you to visit my "Morris Mojo" podcast where I express surprise at the fireworks over Morris last night (Friday). I did not know beforehand. It could be kind of shocking. Fireworks over Morris on a cold and windy Friday night in October? The day before Halloween? Oh my. You many click on permalink:
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwillyu73@yahoo.com
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