How O.J. Simpson Led to Candidate Trump
No kidding. It is not enough to be a star in today's media-driven political circus. You must strive to be the ringmaster. That's the lesson presented by The Donald, who has demonstrated how much mileage can be derived from sheer, unadulterated chutzpah.
Step One: Say something outrageous that breaks conventional rules almost every day. While people still are reacting to your last outrage, give them another.
That's what we hear from Trump -- from his June announcement speech, in which he described undocumented immigrants as killers and rapists, to his recent warning of "riots" if establishment Republicans try to block his nomination at the Grand Old Party's national convention.
Step Two: Encourage your social network friends and followers to retweet messages and build communities of supporters, impenetrable by any information that disagrees with the often-inaccurate pronouncements of Trump.
Step Three: Every time you need to get attention (in the final days before a state's primaries or caucuses, for example), raise your visibility, respond to an attack or simply change the subject, say something else outrageous and let the cycle start again.
The ironic fruits of Trump's labors are the close to $2 billion worth of free media exposure he received this past year, according to The New York Times (using data provided by the tracking firm mediaQuant). Meanwhile, he has spent only $10 million on paid advertisements -- one of the smallest spending budgets of this year's major campaigns.
Journalists greet this new media world with mixed emotions. A media system with fewer corporate gatekeepers is exciting. It allows unconventional ideas to get out and foster robust debate. But it also allows the powerful who are sufficiently media-savvy to bypass fact-checkers or ideas with which they don't agree.
We see that in regimes around the world today -- from Russia to the Islamic State -- and in today's presidential race. Trump has found an eager audience, particularly in displaced working-class Americans looking for a strong-sounding alternatives to both parties' conventional leaders. His supporters deserve to be heard. From Trump, we've already heard enough.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
