How personality trumped policy in this media election cycle

Looking at the media coverage leading to and throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s massive electoral success Tuesday, I wonder if we are seeing — at least a little bit — the impact of politics rendered as entertainment and spectacle.

Former Trump press aide Erin Perrine touched on the point Tuesday during the chatty live election night special hosted by ex-NBC anchor Brian Williams on Amazon’s Prime Video. Perrine noted Vice President Kamala Harris may have spent too much time during the campaign focused on her opponent, making the election seem like a referendum on his personality.

“Not only are we a deeply divided nation, but we aren’t sure where we want to go directionally at this point,” Perrine said early in the evening, before the size of Trump’s victory was apparent. “It’s a policy versus personality conversation that voters are having with themselves.”

Williams’ election special itself seemed to reflect the turn toward spectacle, conducted from a studio set in Los Angeles with huge screens to display sweeping graphics, deploying the kind of technology used to film TV shows like Disney+’s The Mandalorian. They had no decision desk for calling vote projections — which kinda seems the point of live election specials — forcing the audience to focus on the entertainment of seeing big-name guests spar with each other while Williams cited results originally reported on other news platforms.

That turn toward entertainment benefits a candidate like Trump, who is an expert at building an image aimed at captivating and engaging people, using the news media as his messenger. Over his presidential campaign, there was plenty of coverage detailing what policies he proposed to advance in a second term — from extensive tariffs to mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

But I suspect what really moves many Trump fans is his unique charisma, turning rallies into a display where he can say and do things which would typically end a conventional politician’s career. (Remember what he did with a faulty microphone at a recent rally?)

Helping him out are areas in media — and elsewhere — that pundit Matthew Sheffield has labeled “partisan ecosystems,” like Fox News Channel, Newsmax and conservative-friendly podcasters like Joe Rogan. Sheffield notes these corners of media can provide lots of important benefits to politicians: attacking political opponents, defending candidates’ behavior, keeping people loyal to the party and encouraging people who may feel negatively about the candidate to vote with the party.

It’s a media environment where politics is often presented as an entertaining spectacle, with amped-up conflict featuring distinct heroes and villains.

Over the past election season, my thoughts have turned many times to a legendary book, Neil Postman’s prescient 1985 analysis, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business — often used as a textbook in many media analysis and ethics classes. It argues a now-obvious idea: as entertainment becomes a larger element in news coverage, especially on TV, a political leader’s image and ability to entertain us may become more important than their actual policies or actions.

And creating a powerful image is what Trump has excelled at, from his earliest days decades ago building his persona as a real estate baron in New York, to his modern incarnation as a political strongman promising to impose his will on American society. His supporters find him entertaining and feisty; even critics who hate his policies or his demeanor find it difficult to avoid talking about him.

When Harris first stepped up to assume the Democratic nomination from President Joe Biden, it seemed she might have found a way to create her own spectacle — focusing the political conversation on her rapid rise, selection of a running mate, unique identity and the need to introduce herself to voters, despite serving as vice president for nearly four years.

Watching the sitting vice president navigate a wave of media interest that included memes after pop star Charli XCX declared “Kamala is brat” and suggestions she go on the celebrities-interviewed-while-eating-hot-wings YouTube show Hot Ones, you couldn’t escape the sense that Harris faced pressure to entertain the public while explaining why she should be elected president.

But that dynamic quickly changed again, as talk turned to the outrageousness of Trump’s actions — from using expletives to refer to Harris in speeches to presenting a rally in New York City featuring a comic who joked about Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” It seemed an extension of an ethic Trump developed long ago: That being talked about in the press is always better than not being talked about, even if people are mostly saying he’s terrible.

And the media elements connected to his effort — from selling keepsake Bibles to hawking Trump-centered NFT’s with gaudy images and appearing with popular podcasters like Rogan — kept the public focused on the GOP candidate’s outsized image.

Trump’s ability to yank back the spotlight persisted, even when Harris pulled off her own spectacles — like superstar endorsements from Beyoncé and an appearance on Saturday Night Live with her doppelganger, Maya Rudolph.

That kind of media ubiquity – where people are entertained and feel a connection to a big personality – doesn’t just excite supporters. It seems calculated to reach voters who are less involved in the political process, like undecideds and first timers. It also can make extreme policies seem more palatable, allowing supporters to shrug off or downplay Trump’s talk of prosecuting enemies or deporting masses of undocumented immigrants.

What once struck me about conservatism in a simpler time — say, the days of George W. Bush and Sarah Palin — was that the party developed a way of talking about the issues anyone could adopt, like learning a language. But Trump’s ability to leverage media attention as entertainment seems more unique to him — something that legendarily awkward figures like JD Vance and Ron DeSantis might have trouble re-creating, raising questions about how lasting the impact may be.

In the days and weeks to come, there will likely be a lot of columns like this, trying to make sense of a result that some didn’t see coming, and which heralds tremendous change for society and media.

But it may be wise to consider how the rise of politics as entertainment, and the media’s contribution to that ascent, has shaped the current social landscape.

Edited by Jennifer Vanasco. Web page produced by Beth Novey.