The Era Of Trump/Bannon "Managed Media" Begins

Ever since Republicans found Frank Luntz and figured out how to “frame” issues with words like the “death tax”, they really have become masters of propaganda. With the creation of talk radio, “framing” soon morphed into slanted coverage and then into outright lies. GOP officials then would use talk radio to rally the troops behind some important issue to the GOP and, to avoid the ire of the base, go along with the lies. It became an un-virtuous circle, where lies begat more lies, where truth seemed to matter less and less. With the advent of Fox News and a captive TV audience, that cycle was enhanced.

When the Bush administration came into power, Karl Rove expanded on the concept that reality was less and less important when he famously said, “That’s not the way the world works anymore. We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.” As Bush and Rove and the rest of us found out in the wake of the Iraq war, that attitude didn’t quite work out so well.

Part of the reason Rove’s plan didn’t quite pan out was that the press was still out there, doing its job, and trying to report the reality as it existed. Eventually, that reality became too much to ignore. But a new generation of political strategists had a better idea. They looked to authoritarian governments that “managed” democracy and “managed” the media. The government had its own press mouthpieces and other press entities were allowed “freedom” as long as they pretty much towed the party line. Any truly dissenting voices would be marginalized or at worst shut down. The prime example of this is Putin’s Russia and the architect is really a man named Vladislav Surkov. As this profile in the Atlantic describes, “The brilliance of this new type of authoritarianism is that instead of simply oppressing opposition,…it climbs inside all ideologies and movements, exploiting and rendering them absurd”.  Surkov has made the phrase “everything is PR” famous in Russia and is exporting it around the world. Please read the entire profile of the scarily brilliant Surkov in the Atlantic.

Here in the US, the reality star and PR master Donald Trump made a perfect vehicle for a white nationalist like Steve Bannon, who probably already had familiarity with Surkov’s work. For Bannon, Trump’s lies, the proliferation of “fake news”, and constant attacks on the mainstream press all help conspire to make the idea of an objective and independent press absurd. And now, with control of the levers of power, that three-pronged attack will expand and grow.

Just reflect on what we have seen from Trump in the last week or so. An outrageous press conference with vicious attacks on the media and an attempt to redefine conflict of interest and even the meaning of emoluments. That was followed by outright lies about the size of the inauguration crowd and his win of the popular vote when you discount the millions of illegals who voted for Hillary. His press secretary backs up these lies and adds more of his own, refusing to acknowledge what the unemployment rate is. Even a man like Steve Mnuchin, who comes from Goldman Sachs and supposedly lives in the real world, backed up Trump’s lie about the real unemployment rate. Then Kellyanne Conway tops it all off by introducing us to “alternative facts”. Lastly, representative Lamar Smith spoke on the House floor and said, “Better to get your news directly from the President. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” All these things are designed to eliminate the idea that there is really any “truth”.

Now the effort is expanding into the agencies of government. Most agencies have not had their public relations staff filled since the inauguration. As Yglesias notes, “It’s hard to report when none of the agencies have public affairs staff in place to answer the phones.” That’s a feature, not a bug for Trump’s new “managed media”. We also learned today that federal agencies have been ordered to stop communicating not only to the press but also to Congress as well. At present, this seems to be presented as a temporary measure until the administration can get better coordinated but there is no guarantee right now that it will not be extended or used again at other points in the future. We also learned that two Trump aides have been sent to the Voice of America, raising fears at that organization. A recent change by Congress switched control of the agency from a board to a single CEO and, as Politico reports, “that change – along with a prior shift that allows the network to legally reach a U.S. audience — had stoked fears among some agency officials that Voice of America could serve as an unfettered propaganda arm for the former reality TV star.” Lastly, two Breitbart reporters, Julia Hahn , who will report to Bannon, and Sebastian Gorka have joined the Trump White House in order, it appears, to help “manage” the news and the media.

Under Trump’s new authoritarianism, it appears that federal agencies will be providing less and less information to the press, the public, and perhaps even Congress. hat information is provided will more and more “massaged” before it gets released. The administration’s lies will continue so that it becomes harder and harder to decipher fact from fiction. Trump will have various propaganda outfits from which to create even more confusion and attack other, more traditional, media outlets. And Trump will have the bully pulpit to continue the lies and attack the media. In the end, Trump and his propaganda outlets will become the dominant media player.

If you doubt this result, take a look at how Putin neutered the Russian media. There was no mass shutdown of opposition media. Certain troublesome reporters were simply eliminated, other outlets were closed, not by force, but by “legal” means, and the rest have learned to simply muddle through as best they can, within the bounds of the “soft censorship” they know exists.

This is the media environment that Trump and Bannon are looking to create here in the US. And while the mainstream media agonizes over whether to call Trump’s lies “lies”, on how to document all the lies, on whether to call every outrageous Trump tweet “breaking news” and report it with context to follow, or to even broadcast Trump or administration events live when it is clear that they are habitual liars, their power is slowly but surely being eroded and their relevance diminished. The media is having a hard time seeing the forest of truth through the trees of lies. By the time they do, they will find they have been “managed” into irrelevance.