How the Media Created Trump

Once upon a time, war, famine, pandemic, elections, stories of Nobel Laureates, science, inventions, etc. were mostly the oxygen for print and electronic media to provide public warning, as watchdogs or the fifth estate.

But by and by, the role and goal of media drifted far and wide from public warning to entertainment, from community service to individual glorification, and from social responsibilities to economic interest.

Looking out for fresh headlines every day, minimal interest in follow-up despite necessity, deflection of attention from genuine problems to triviality to evade responsibility, and a focus on producing more content for entertainment rather than providing a warning service, etc. are global trends in the media industry in recent times.

For the last few decades, the most entertaining part of the entertainment industry has been the news suppliers in print and electronic media. At the inception of the print media industry and later in the electronic media, it used to serve as the national or international conscience.

But as it kept growing, it entered a race with other elements of the industry to take over the role of entertainment, oblivious to its watchdog function.

The readers and viewers of the media have clearly divided into two groups: A lazy group that seeks fun and pleasure from the media's entertainment, and an insignificant group that looks for news to correct society through its content. 

The question is what percentage of the world cares about news and works to correct society, and what percentage of the media aims to work for societal correction rather than focusing on internal economic growth or chasing people in positions of power.

The crucifixion of the current media craze can be useful in finding answers to the above question. For the two terms of USA governance, not in sequence, Trump became the life-saving oxygen for all print and electronic media.

Middle Eastern wars of the preceding years, or even terrorism, the global coin of the last twenty years, didn’t transpire as much as he did. Why, amid so many plights around the world, did only Trump emerge as the top hits across all media?

Is it because Trump was more infectious than COVID-19 in arousing fear of death in the human race? Is it because Trump’s idea of a blockade to migration or physical walls inspired Whites, the Media Mughals, to survive as the supreme race?

Is it because he brought the religious and cultural fault lines to the fore, to engulf the media to sensitize and deflect attention from the real crisis? Is it because Trump’s threat to destroy the Persian civilization was more believable to the media?

The answer lies in my attempt to correlate Trump with the COVID pandemic.

Why do I call Trump more pandemic than COVID? Let's look at the symbiotic relationship between the two and what they emitted together in every nook and corner of the world.

Both Trump and COVID infected the world in two domains: Global political health and biological health. The global lockdown to fight against Covid emptied the cities, turning clamorous life into the silence of a cemetery.

While hate politics darkened the lives of non-natives, who locked themselves down not to evade death from COVID but from the security forces designed through ICE to avoid unreasonable deportation. 

Trump infected politics in many countries of the world, including the United States of America, to establish authoritarianism, forcing democracy to go into political lockdown.

Thanks to the conscience of the people of the USA to feel the brunt of the Iran War and stand against it in the Midterm election.

Interestingly, the mass media ran after Trump and COVID for genuine reasons in his first tenure and after Trump and AI in the second. It is unclear whether they aimed to protect democracy or to promote Trump and his nefarious goals of protecting corporate interests.

They seem to be least interested in giving due coverage to issues like the Gaza genocide, the Ethiopian famine, and suppression of human rights in Myanmar or Yemen, nor in the dilapidation of democracy around the world.

Trump prolonged the Ukraine-Russia war to deflect attention from his evil ME strategy, quietly emboldening Israel to continue the Gaza genocide and dare war on the Iran front.

Trump’s hate politics and thumbing their noses at democracy inspired established and nascent democracies around the world to turn towards political adventurism, suppress dissent, and extend political power to infinity, defying or disregarding civic systems of the state.

The indulgence of his two-front adventures in the Russian theatre and Iran plunged the whole world into an unmanageable economic crisis; the flames across Europe do justify.

Precisely before the midterm election, his extreme Islamophobic statement seemed to have prompted the Democrats to help the USA avoid extinction from global leadership for the time being. 

Trump may have lost the election due to the strength of American institutions, but left an indelible mark on the shell of democracy not only in the United States but elsewhere as well.

The higher percentage of Native Americans who cast their votes in favor of Trump also suggests that the wound in the cultural fault lines is deeper than what is visibly seen.

Trump, unless impeached before his tenure, would lose the attention of the media, and instead they might capture the religious fault lines as better items of sensitization by far-right-leaning media in the USA and Europe.

The world may have to wait a while to see the media return to its noble role as a societal watchdog, rather than the twisted role of entertaining global readers and viewers with recurring news about pandemics like Trump.

Let the media not focus only on people's powerful positions, but rather on their powerful deeds for the broader society and the world. Let democracy return to its pristine form and survive as a creed, not as a cult like Trump or any other.

Brigadier General AF Jaglul Ahmed (Retd) is a regular contributor to national dailies. He can be reached at [email protected].