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Month: October 2016

Trump and the Trolls

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A lot has been made of Donald Trump’s online supporters—many of whom are part of a social media brigade of trolls posting offensive, oftentimes racist and sexist memes to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hillary Clinton made these people—known collectively as the ‘alt-right’—the subject of a speech in which she attacked Trump’s association with the movement.

Trump is not the first political candidate to have a major online following. During the 2008 and 2012 GOP primaries, Ron Paul was famous for his Revolutionaries whose ubiquitous social media activity ensured that ‘End the Fed’ was a top post on even the most obscure and unpolitical YouTube videos. In 2016, Bernie Sanders’ mass of young, white men posting in support of single-payer healthcare and free college tuition became known as ‘Bernie Bros.’

Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump all mobilized sizeable and enthusiastic online followings. But, only Trump has been able to transform that support into tangible electoral success. Why?

In 2008, Ron Paul earned just over one million primary votes. He barely doubled that number in 2012 when he won (controversially) a majority of delegates in four states. During the 2016 primaries, Sanders undoubtedly generated more electoral success than Paul when he earned over 13 million votes and won 23 states. Still, neither of these men were able to clinch their respective nominations. On the other hand, Trump captured 14 million votes as well as the Republican nomination.

Trump has been able to inspire support, both online and offline, because his message is emotional rather than ideological. In contrast to Trump, Ron Paul had the least emotional and most ideological message of these three candidates. During debates he would rail against the Federal Reserve and fiat currency, even getting booed for suggesting the 9/11 terror attacks were a result of blowback from U.S. foreign policy. Ron Paul’s ideological campaigning was strong enough to make celebrities of two obscure economists when he urged his supporters to search out the works of Murray Rothbard and Ludwig von Mises to understand his economic policies.

Sanders preached a similarly ideological message, and, while it did contain emotional elements—the attacks against the 1%; appeals to Americans who were hurting from the economic collapse, who, unlike the major banks, received no bailouts—the message still came from Sanders’ years of studying socialist doctrine. From his time at a Marxist kibbutz in Israel, to his tenure as a member of the far-left Liberty Union Party of Vermont, Sanders honed his thinking around economic inequality and the power of democratic socialism.

From what we’ve seen of Trump, he has no ideology. The only author he ever cites as inspirational is himself as author of The Art of the Deal. The only book he claims to like more than his magnum opus is the Bible, which he has shown little evidence of having actually read (when asked his favourite verse Trump replied, ‘Well, I think many. I mean, when we get into the Bible, I think many, so many,’). Likewise, unlike Ron Paul and his supporters—who exalted the Constitution—Trump’s claims of constitutional support seem false: he stated that he would ‘protect Article I, Article II, Article XII.’ There is no Article XII of the Constitution.

These gaffes don’t shake Trump’s supporters, though. Had Ron Paul or Bernie Sanders made a similar mistake, it’s unlikely they could have survived. Their supporters were more dedicated to ideology than they were to the candidate. Paul’s Revolutionaries refused to support his slightly less libertarian son, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, for president, and the Bernie Bros bristled at the idea of backing Hillary Clinton, who they saw as a Wall Street sell-out. Trump supporters have no ideological test for their candidate—and many of them don’t desire one. Trump has never required an ideological test for his supporters either. Instead, he appeals to the emotions of voters who feel left behind and ignored. Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders told voters if they learned enough they could change the system. Trump told voters they were allowed to be angry—angry at an economy that’s shifting jobs away from America’s heartland to China and Mexico—and that they were allowed to be fed up with politicians who promised workbooks of policies they would implement and then compromised behind closed doors after getting elected. Paul and Sanders gave voters instructions to use their brains; Trump gave them permission to listen to their hearts.

After Clinton’s speech about the alt-right, several leaders of its online movement held their own press conference to answer questions about their ideology. Peter Brimelow, an anti-immigration author and editor-in-chief of VDare.com; Richard Spencer, a white nationalist blogger and head of the National Policy Institute think tank; and Jared Taylor, a self-proclaimed ‘race realist’ and founder of American Renaissance magazine; told the press that, while they and their supporters want Trump to win, they don’t think he shares their racist convictions. It was a bizarre moment in the campaign. Trump has been labelled by the mainstream media as a bigot since he announced his candidacy and here were three of his supporters complaining that he wasn’t racist enough. But, they tempered their criticism by explaining they had no delusions about his lack of ideological devotion to their ideals. Instead, they were supporting him because Trump was an emotional lightning rod that drew white, working-class support. He may have stumbled onto some shared policies—deporting illegal immigrants and barring Muslims from entering the country—but ultimately it was more important that Trump win than he be a true believer. To them, Trump represented the test of a supposition: could a candidate win without appealing to minority voters and by criticizing multiculturalism and immigration? If Trump could accomplish this, it would not matter if he followed through on his promises. If Trump could pull off the election he would prove to the alt-right that there was an opening for its candidates. Trump would break a hole in the system wide enough for a new generation of ideologically rigorous alt-righters to climb through.

This promise of success is a major contributor to Trump’s support among lower-class, poorly educated Americans. Similarly to how the alt-right views Trump, residents of rural Appalachia and the former manufacturing strongholds of the Northeast (the areas Trump performed the strongest during the primaries) see in Trump a chance for salvation. These rural voters, like the alt-right online, have no meaningful representation in the political process. Due, in the case of working-class Americans, to their lack of economic agency, and in the case of the alt-right to their socially unacceptable political views, both groups see Trump as a bomb that can blow up the system and provide them an opening.

This has been Trump’s power all along. His real-world political success is the result of what he represents to his followers. Whether he is a crypto-racist for the alt-right or a strong and competent businessman who will turn the economic fortunes of working-class America around, Trump’s lack of adherence to any clear ideology is what has allowed him to gain his political foothold. Trump supporters aren’t supporting a specific economic plan or set of moral guidelines, they’re supporting a man who has spent his entire adult life selling himself as a brand. Trump isn’t a politician so much as he is a promise—a promise of success, of glitz, glamour, and greatness. And in this campaign he has become a promise to so many Americans that the America they lost—the America that once employed millions in the Rust Belt in manufacturing and Appalachia with mining jobs—could one day return. That America could be Great Again.

Paul and Sanders built online followings by promoting ideals that had to be studied and researched. They inadvertently created ideological purity tests for their supporters and themselves. If they didn’t stick to the checklist of acceptable beliefs they created for their followers, they would be abandoned. By abandoning ideology in favour of his personal brand, Trump built an ideological following online and generated real votes at the ballot box. On November 8, we will see how many Americans buy what Trump is selling.

Blurring the lines between politics and entertainment

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The convergence of entertainment and politics moves substantive policy debate to the background and deters experienced candidates from entering the fray.

This article appeared in the Toronto Star on October 2, 2016.

‘Politics is Hollywood for the ugly,’ mused Bill Clinton strategist Paul Begala in the mid-1980s.

On July 17, 1960, in a suburb east of London, England, Mark Burnett was born. Who could know that Burnett, the son of two factory workers, would one day help flip the American political establishment on its head?

At age 17, Burnett enlisted in the British Army and became a section commander in the Parachute Regiment. In October 1982, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked in Beverly Hills as a nanny and chauffeur to the stars.

In 1995, Burnett purchased the format rights to a French adventure competition television series, the Raid Gauloises. He then brought a similar competition to America. Eco-Challenge would launch his television producing career. With his hit series Survivor, Burnett began reshaping the television landscape and institutionalizing what we now call ‘reality TV,’ an accomplishment for which he is simultaneously lauded and panned.

Burnett changed America, revitalizing what was a failing television industry while masterfully entertaining millions. Today, he is responsible for some 11 programs that span the four main U.S. networks.

But, as almost always is the case, there were unintended consequences to building this voyeuristic genre dependent on cartoonishly absurd people. And one of those consequences was the convergence of reality television and politics.

In January 2004, American’s were reintroduced to businessman Donald Trump on Burnett’s program The Apprentice, ironically billed as ‘the ultimate job interview.’ Trump went on to spend the next 14 years firing hundreds of job ‘applicants’ on prime-time television.

Last Monday, the tables were turned. Trump was no longer in his iconic boardroom lambasting and publicly humiliating contestants. Rather, he was himself being interviewed, in front of 100 million people, for the job of the presidency of the United States.

The result was nearly as absurd as the many hours of The Apprentice had been.

The convergence of entertainment and politics presents challenges for meaningful governance. It moves substantive policy debate to the background. It deters serious and experienced candidates from entering the fray. It further exacerbates the role capital plays in campaigns

On reality television, fans frequently cheer and vote for the entertaining, the vain, the crazy and the downright bizarre. In politics, we can only hope that voters do not base their ballot-box decisions on these criteria, but rather place emphasis on intelligence, experience, judgment and sound policy.

We are fortunate that in Canada, regardless of partisan affiliation, our political discourse has not stooped to this level. Rather than expending time debating the whereabouts of birth certificates or the physical stamina of candidates; Canadians have largely resisted the urge to plunge into that silliness that has gripped the political arena of our neighbours to the south.

We are lucky to live in a country where we can watch a debate among party leaders and witness thoughtful discussion about Canada’s place in the world, about diversifying our economy, and about contrasting approaches to deficit spending.

All too often, like the weather, people complain that Canadian politics is boring, dry, insignificant and uneventful; these commentators may have a point.

When a juicy story comes along, we all chase it like a shiny piece of tin foil blowing down the street. We spent two years debating a $90,000 cheque, and the F-15 procurement fiasco seems to have lingered on the front pages for a decade.

But this doesn’t even come close to reality television material. That said, we too are at risk. At a time when all media are working overtime to construct new business models and people seem to be happy to consume complicated stories in eight-second clips, it is easy to see how we could take a sharp turn into reality TV land.

While his Trump’s candidacy may seem like a harmless diversion in a world fraught with genuine, real and vexing problems, his ability to galvanize so many citizens in the United States should serve as a warning to other countries, including Canada — a warning that we have no idea where the blurring of the line between politics and entertainment will take us.

Jaime Watt is the executive chairman of Navigator Ltd. and a Conservative strategist.