Donald Trump, the clickbait candidate
On the significance of Breitbart taking over the Trump campaign
Donald Trump is now on his third campaign manager in as many months. And the choice is a doozey: Stephen Bannon, until recently the chairman of Breitbart News LLC, which runs the fiercely combative alt-news site Breitbart. Trump has reportedly demoted his former campaign head, Paul Manafort, a long-term Republican consultant who had spent months trying to reassure a restive Republican caucus that Trump "gets it" and would begin running a serious campaign around the issues they cared about.
The stated rationale is that Trump is chafing under the Manafort program, and wants to be himself. Breitbart had been thriving as the volunteer press shop of the Trump campaign, singing his praises, running exclusive interviews with him, and running down his internal enemies in the Republican Party. But now, instead of letting itself be used by the Trump campaign, it will simply run the thing itself. Much more convenient that way. Trump is now the clickbait candidate: Check out this video of kids playing the knockout game. Pls fwd, then vote Trump/Pence.
This move should go over like a lead balloon with Paul Ryan and other Republicans who bit the bullet in the last few months and endorsed their party's nominee. Breitbart under Bannon's leadership openly disdained GOP orthodoxies and made no secret that it wished to destroy the near-enemy within the conservative camp before turning on Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
It's also a fitting end-point for the Republican Party in this cycle. For years the party and the conservative intellectuals had what they thought was a workable relationship with the "entertainment wing," of the party. The entertainers needed ideas, which could be generated in new formulations endlessly by the conservative movement's scribblers. The scribblers needed mass media air time with right-leaning audiences in order to sell books. And the politicians wanted direct access to their voter base without the filter of The New York Times or The Washington Post mangling their message. The price was an occasional freak-out.
But the truth is, at some point, elected Republicans let themselves be henpecked by media personalities who have no real interest in ever implementing these ideas in the long term. In Washington, money flows to partisan media more freely when it's in opposition to the executive branch of government. Ratings, clicks, and donor interest all go down when you're out there defending the president. They go up when you're attacking a president. Breitbart has the best of both worlds in that it is in opposition to both the White House and to the Republican congressional leadership.
The best defense of populist right wing media was that it was merely lowbrow. It was a bullhorn that pitched conservative ideas in a crude way, to a mass audience that is only receptive to crude messages. But it isn't a surprise that in a democratic polity, the purveyors of crude media would confuse their numerical reach with significance. And also that they would begin to think that the ideas were starting to distract from the important thing, which was the volume of the bullhorn.
Thus Sean Hannity taunts an editor at The Wall Street Journal: "Instead of 23,000 Twitter fans hearing from you. I shared your ignorance with my 1.5 m and 15 m radio listeners!" While Hannity surely is more handsomely compensated than the victims of his taunts, the truth is that in the long run, subscribers to the Wall Street Journal are more important to the advancement of political goals than Hannity's paranoid geriatrics. People with ideas pitch publishers and write books and hope to get them reviewed in papers like the Wall Street Journal. People who want to sell erection pills, and hawk scam products like gold coins and survival seeds ask about the ad rates against right-wing populist media.
And it is a fitting end for the campaign to be handed over to this huckster. Donald Trump knows how to build a casino on junk bonds. He knows how to sell a real-estate seminar by saying you'll be a billionaire if you apply for a new credit line to get the add-on insights. A few decades ago, his aging Boomer audience could buy into aspiration and glitz. But now they are at the age when fear sells. So he hired salesman who knows that product line.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Michael Brendan Dougherty is senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is the founder and editor of The Slurve, a newsletter about baseball. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, ESPN Magazine, Slate and The American Conservative.
-
Jussie Smollet conviction overturned on appeal
Speed Read The Illinois Supreme Court overturned the actor's conviction on charges of staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself in 2019
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
What might happen if Trump eliminates the Department Of Education?
Today's Big Question The president-elect says the federal education agency is on the chopping block
By Theara Coleman, The Week US Published
-
Global court issues arrest warrant for Netanyahu
Speed Read The International Criminal Court issued warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who stand accused of war crimes
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
US election: who the billionaires are backing
The Explainer More have endorsed Kamala Harris than Donald Trump, but among the 'ultra-rich' the split is more even
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
US election: where things stand with one week to go
The Explainer Harris' lead in the polls has been narrowing in Trump's favour, but her campaign remains 'cautiously optimistic'
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Is Trump okay?
Today's Big Question Former president's mental fitness and alleged cognitive decline firmly back in the spotlight after 'bizarre' town hall event
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
The life and times of Kamala Harris
The Explainer The vice-president is narrowly leading the race to become the next US president. How did she get to where she is now?
By The Week UK Published
-
Will 'weirdly civil' VP debate move dial in US election?
Today's Big Question 'Diametrically opposed' candidates showed 'a lot of commonality' on some issues, but offered competing visions for America's future and democracy
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
1 of 6 'Trump Train' drivers liable in Biden bus blockade
Speed Read Only one of the accused was found liable in the case concerning the deliberate slowing of a 2020 Biden campaign bus
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
How could J.D. Vance impact the special relationship?
Today's Big Question Trump's hawkish pick for VP said UK is the first 'truly Islamist country' with a nuclear weapon
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
Biden, Trump urge calm after assassination attempt
Speed Reads A 20-year-old gunman grazed Trump's ear and fatally shot a rally attendee on Saturday
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published