Soon after Jerry Springer died last month, another sandy-haired 70-something with a Germanic name continued his work. Where Springer’s platform was daytime television, Donald Trump’s was no less than CNN. Where Springer had to coax tasteless behaviour from his guests, Trump supplied it himself. (He variously called women “nasty” and “crazy” on May 10, to cheers from a live audience.) Where Springer performed his role with a sense of ironic distance, Trump couldn’t be playing for higher stakes.
One famous old epigram is the wrong way round, then. Sometimes history appears first as farce, then as tragedy.
The mistake is to blame the broadcaster. Yes, CNN could have denied Trump a stage last week. But to what end? It wouldn’t change the underlying fact that lots of people find the man amusing. Headlines such as “What was CNN thinking?” and “Really, CNN?” imply that responsible adults are failing to stop Trump: that he is the product of negligent elites. This is always the way with analyses of the former president. Three elites in particular get the blame.
One is the media. If only Facebook and Twitter policed the misinformation on their platforms. If only Fox News developed a conscience. If only journalists fact-checked Trump. (Oh, how the CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins tried.)
Another is the Republican party itself. If only congressional leaders such as Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell stood up to Trump. If only his rival Ron DeSantis attacked him directly instead of obliquely. If only the Republicans hadn’t indulged the Tea Party, Newt Gingrich and other forerunners of Trumpist politics.
Yet a third culprit is “neoliberalism” and its enthusiasts. If only their policies hadn’t beggared the industrial heartlands. If only jobs hadn’t been offshored to China. If only unions hadn’t been left to wither.
In all three cases, there is some veneer of truth. But in all three cases, little choice or power is attributed to voters.
The elites are always accused of holding the general public in contempt. This gets it exactly wrong. The elites will go through great intellectual contortions to avoid blaming the public for the state of politics. It is themselves they find at fault, whether for inventing social media and failing to regulate it, or for allowing Trump to take over an institution as august as the GOP, or for letting the market rip. On the surface, this all sounds like humility and contrition. In fact, it is its own kind of arrogance.
The premise, after all, is that everything in the world is a result of what is done, or not done, by elites. It treats the “people” as an inert blob with no agency of their own. In exonerating them, it infantilises them.
A more honest account of events would go like this. A large minority of the public need no manipulation to vote for populism. While some have obvious grievances, not all do. (I am waiting to hear from economic determinists why lots of prosperous people voted for Trump and why, in the UK, the home counties voted for Brexit.) Yes, there is such a thing as elite mismanagement, and it can explain why a voter might, with a heavy heart, try a radical alternative. It cannot explain why someone might giggle as an accuser of sexual assault is called a “whack job” by a former president. No, that is a straightforward case of civic irresponsibility. Or nihilism.
Blaming the elites alone is soothing because it offers the illusion of control. If the cause of populism is top-down, the solution must be too. It is just a question of finding and applying a technocratic fix. The alternative interpretation, that modern politics is more like a team sport than anything rational, and that Trump is one team’s beloved “captain”, commanding unqualified fealty for as long as he is around, is much scarier. It suggests a problem with the demos itself: one that exists before, outside and above the doings of the governing class.
Why, if neoliberalism is the cause of demagoguery, did Joseph McCarthy flourish in the statist, egalitarian 1950s? If eminent Republicans were to find courage and oppose Trump (as plenty did in 2016), how would that stop the rank-and-file backing him in the primaries anyway?
As for the media, what if it does more to uncover populist sentiment in a country than to create it? A generation ago, it was talk radio that was held to be the radicaliser of millions. That moral panic treated the audience as helpless children. So do the recriminations against CNN. At some point, the demand for fake news will get as much scrutiny as the precise means of supply.
janan.ganesh@ft.com
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