We’re a pompous bunch here in the United States of America. We love our red, white, and blue. We’re patriotic. We live by our founding principles of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Between 1776 and 2020, our moral values have evolved but our principles have largely remained the same.
Today, as we’re in the dawn of a contentious election, with two presidential candidates no one’s happy with, all sandwiched between a global pandemic, racial tensions, devastating climatic events, and a troubled economy, we find ourselves confused. Very confused.
Can we trust the media? Can we trust our politicians? Do I have much in common with my fellow Americans or are we that different from one another?
Can I believe in the system?
I’d say it feels like we’re officially all part of the Great American Political Circus.
Put on and sponsored by the media, politicians, our technology, and ourselves.
The Circus
I was personally never that big of a fan of circuses. As a child, clowns terrified me. I also found it morally sad that animals such as elephants and tigers were relegated from being nature’s freest creatures to taking orders from humans; denigrated to nothing more than stage props. There was also something eery about the one Ringling Bro’s circus I went to sometime around my elementary school days.
It all felt so forced. Really artificial.
Fifteen years later I’m having those same feelings manifest while I step back and observe at what’s happening in my precious American democracy.
We’re all witnessing the American political system become a great, big, flashy circus.
Lots of glitz, flamboyant shows of glamour, and all behind a facade of control that we, the public, feel we have.
The clowns and performers are politicians.
The spotlight directing your attention is the media.
The admit one ticket when you enter the circus is the channel or social media platform you receive two hours of guaranteed entertainment from.
Except in our case, it’s infotainment.
Infotainment: broadcast material which is intended both to entertain and to inform.
Our Twitter timelines, Fox News Hours, and favorite political satirists are now all giving you steaming hot bowls of infotainment. All times of the day. Every day.
Taking you from a state of hum-ho to a volatile state of “what’s wrong with the world?!” anger.
Sadly, we’ve all gotten our admit one ticket at the low cost of having access to modern technology — television channels, internet, social media, and smartphones.
That admit one ticket immerses you in the circus of American politics and news media. Through the power of a small breaking news notification on your iPhone or via the traditional lunch hour viewing of MSNBC, we’re constantly plugged into a reverberating cycle of infotainment. Getting us riled up emotionally and wanting to tear our hair out.
Well, lucky for us. We can always stop voluntarily obliging to the circus. We can exhibit self-control, but only if we can recognize the show happening in front of our eyes every day.
Circus Act #1: The Media
In a circus or any entertaining live event, oftentimes there’s a very powerful visual tool that allows attention to be centrally directed on a stage. It’s the spotlight. The spotlight illuminates and hyper focuses on a singular area of the stage and captures your eyes while the rest of the stage is darkened.
Similarly, the mainstream media’s role in our society has become akin to the spotlight directing your attention ever so subtly, but intentionally.
Most people can agree George Floyd lost his life in a devastating and maddening repeat example of police brutality. But carefully recall how differently news cycles unfolded between conservative and liberal media outlets.
Fox News Headlines on the 8th day of George Floyd Protests:
Police may bust high-ranking Antifa members soon, amid concerns over riots hitting suburbia
Kellyanne Conway on ‘outrage’ over Trump’s St. John’s trip: ‘Anarchists won’t dissuade us’
Fleischer on Trump activating military: Governors are ‘fools’ not to call National Guard, “do your job”
CNN headlines on the 8th day of George Floyd Protests:
Massive protests in US largely peaceful now (though it warned of possible problems later in the night)
Thousands march in protest in Floyd’s hometown of Houston
Reverend: They turned holy ground into literal battleground
These are strikingly contrasting headlines that lead to vastly different takeaways for each audience base. While one (Fox) speaks predominately about an anarchist online community organizing protests and gatherings becoming increasingly more violent, the other (CNN) largely reports the peaceful nature of the gatherings and how a Reverand spoke out against Trump for teargassing a holy site to disperse protestors for a photo-op.
Tell a kid their entire childhood the earth is flat. They will believe it. Tell a kid their entire childhood the earth is round. They will believe it.
We’re doing no different when exclusively tuning into a single news source. Polarization is a byproduct of one-sided reporting.
Take a look at this data table by SIGNAL highlighting media bias across keyword usage from major news platforms.
An alarmingly varied distribution of facts and keywords being spoken across different media outlets.
Over a two week period, Fox News’s anchors talked about Antifa 5x more frequently and rioting 3x more often compared to CNN when co-mentioning ‘George Floyd’ in the same news segment.
The most staggering takeaway:
“Of the 1451 segments that Fox News has run, only 595 have not mentioned rioting or looting… close to 60% of all coverage by Fox News has linked George Floyd’s death to these topics.”
Fox News Channel averaged 3.5 million primetime viewers in the month of August, over 1.5 million larger than MSNBC or CNN. That’s just TV ratings.
Now extrapolate the disparity across popular social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and all of a sudden every share, retweet, or like leads to an entirely different audience buying into biased views.
Multiply the sharing effect to Google algorithms displaying searches popular to your location, search history, and demographic information, we now ultimately have the most leveraged information divide in human history.
We’re getting spotlighted vastly different pieces of information and viewpoints from our most ‘trustworthy’ broadcast news networks.
The goal of media is to make every problem, your problem. — Naval
Circus Act #2: The Politicians
Growing up, there’s an underlying sentiment our school systems and society get across — politicians care about you. They do what’s best for their constituents.
We’re taught to believe our votes have a direct correlation with public interests and that policies are carefully crafted to push for the greater good.
Couldn’t be farther from the truth.
If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that politicizing social issues is more valuable for a senator’s reelection cause than it is about actually working towards a solution.
The endless bickering between Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill or the Senate floor is repulsive. Every week we have a headline — Chuck Schumer & Nancy Pelosi battling Lindsey Graham & Mitch McConnell.
Shouldn’t they be negotiating between closed doors and working out bills that appease the House and Senate in a time of mayhem? Nah. House of Cardsesque public backstabbing and fingerpointing is easier.
Both sides sought to win the optics battle for ‘who brought home a better deal for their base’ instead of patching together relief bills and a pandemic stimulus plan that makes sense for families and small businesses who are hurting.
1/2 of Americans who lost their job because of COVID-19 are still unemployed. Boston, New Orleans, and San Fransisco have seen small business closures at 33%,45%, and 49% respectively.
Shouldn’t fixing these problems come before personal agendas and political zingers?
We are watching nothing more than a democracy transition into showbiz before our very eyes.
Public trust in the federal government and our U.S. elected officials is dead. 20% trust in the federal government. 20%.
What other occupation in the world let alone America are you able to maintain your job while every stakeholder or customer is terribly unsatisfied?
We’ve become completely normalized to our U.S. representatives and senators serving the equivalent of lifelong terms while having a low marginal output on building policies that actually move the needle on pressing issues.
According to data by Pew, most Americans can agree on these obvious issues in our country today:
Inequality
Education
Healthcare
Systemic racism
Climate change
Immigration policy
Left or right, these issues are pervasive across all regions of the country.
“They put on their suit and sound like lying robots”
Is how my childhood friend describes it who stays away from being too involved in talking politics other than voting. I must say, I don’t disagree with him. How many times do you watch a political rally feel like you took away a whole lot of nothing? Their language is filled with hyperbolic statements, vague promises, and snake oil salesmanship. Enough.
We must give credit where it’s due, however. Trump was right about the establishment. His rise to the White House isn’t an accident.
President Trump is uncancellable
In a profession of artificiality and inadequate action, Trump is the living embodiment of what you see is what you get. He’s unfiltered. Uncanny. Arrogant. A bulldog on the debate stage.
He says what’s on his mind, all the time.
That’s his superpower. People eat it up. He is unabashedly authentic.
Whether it’s having a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, refusing to denounce extremist white groups, calling military vets “suckers”, or having an affair with a pornstar, Trump cannot be taken down by the media.
He’s the master of turning the story on its head and controlling the narrative.
Behind every ‘FAKE NEWS!’ tweet is a kernel of strategy; dismiss the accusation and march forward with your head held high and chest held firm.
Where other politicians dance around saying a direct statement, Trump just says it. Where Republicans fear being too abrasive in their statements about immigration policy, Trump says exactly what his true feelings are. Racist or not.
The political establishment wasn’t prepared to have someone be so commanding in their tone and intention when speaking about minorities, China, or our economy.
He might be the volcanic wake-up call establishment politicians needed.
Delivering results might be out of the question, but delivering authenticity is always in demand.
A sign of the times — 152 total years of life on that stage, both fighting for their political lives. Image by Business Insider.
Last night’s debate symbolized America’s direction as a nation. Whoever leads the charge post our election result, at least half of America will be dissatisfied. This means two election cycles in a row, we’ve nominated candidates who leave more to desire.
The leader of the free world doesn’t seem to attract the right talent pool these days. Who would’ve thought?
Circus Ingredient #3: The People
We the people.
Those three words are the introduction to our constitution. The contract we all agree to be a part of as citizens of the United States of America. They notate that people come first. Not the government, not another entity, but rather the people.
Currently, we the people are being fooled and we don’t even realize it.
“The first principle is to not fool yourself. And you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard Feynman
No circus exists without an audience. The circus’s income is generated by the price of that ‘admit one’ ticket you hand in as you enter the premises.
In our case, the admit one ticket is your smartphone, internet connection, and tv channel. Almost all Americans have all 3, all Americans have at least one.
This admits one ticket grants you access and turns you into a spectator. Whether you choose to be active or passive as you sit in the stands is completely your prerogative.
The media devises narratives, while politicians dictate how strongly they decide to pander and hedge for their base. They fuel the fire and set the playing field.
The people lose. We get in on the action, endlessly debating topics and losing friendships over conflicting ideologies.
Democrats make Republicans feel like idiots for not believing in science or ‘common sense’. Republicans make Democrats feel like bleeding hearts and social justice warriors divorced from reality.
Pull up Facebook or Twitter and you’ll have your 10–20 friends who crazily spend their energy arguing one another over gun rights, stimulus checks, or why the middle class gets damned.
We all know how it ends. 20+ comments leading to nothing more than enhanced hate on both sides.
Civility is gone out the window.
And we begin the cycle again tomorrow. Another breaking news event will happen. You will resume watching your mainstream media of choice and you will vent on social media.
More arguments, more distance created between you and those who disagree with you. The proverbial echo chamber is formed.
In a strange, convoluted way, we’ve become a repeat customer at the circus. We crave to have more dirt on the other side. The more divisive we become, the more absorbed we get.
What choices do we have?
Opt-out of the circus.
Resign from making every problem your problem.
Retire and vote out legacy politicians on both sides of the aisle who are addicted to power.
Put down our phone and turn off news notifications and instead attend city council meetings or fight for reallocating of budgets in your child’s public school district.
Listen to people who have different beliefs than you do. Empathize, don’t shut them down.
Conversations and ideas lead to progress. It’s slow, arduous, and oftentimes painfully excruciating, but it’s a helluva lot better than succumbing to the circus we’ve all blindly obliged to.
Step away from the inflow of infotainment and control what you can control.