The Medium Was The Message

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Prefatory Note: I first wrote this essay on November 7, 2020, a few days after our last presidential election, sending it to a small audience of friends and family members. Although it is slightly dated, I wanted to share it with a larger audience, hence its inclusion in this inaugural BLOG. Given all that has transpired in the last week, I have composed a short postscript to put some closure on the thoughts I first wrote in the longer piece.

When I was a college freshman I was required to read The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan.  Having never stretched myself very much as a reader in high school, I was meeting this writer for the first time, even though by then he was a flickering light on the American intellectual scene.  Today McLuhan is most remembered for his axiomatic statement about modern communication:  the medium is the message.  As I try to make sense of the 2020 presidential election season, McLuhan’s words are both prescient and explanatory of what we have just witnessed and endured.

Commenting on the impact of television that was transforming human life in the 1950s, McLuhan saw that it is not the content of a communication that ultimately conveys its meaning or summons its power to inspire or terrorize.  It is the way it is presented, in this case through a device delivering reduced images of life into our homes, transfixing our attention and creating lasting visual and sound-byte impressions in our minds about what is true and what is real.   McLuhan's insights reinforce communication theory in acknowledging the degree to which all of us actually hear as much if not more through our eyes than we do with our ears.   In person-to-person discourse we rivet on facial expressions, gestures, vocal inflections and body language much more than we hang on every word that strikes our ears or registers in our cerebral lexicons.

McLuhan was one of the first to grasp how the medium of television--its images, sounds, quick action, and abrupt transitions--is actually more persuasive and motivational to viewers than what we normally access in reading a book or listening to the radio.  In other words, the audio-visual medium--and its video-techno step children now delivered to us in handheld and lap-fitted devices--has become the primary means by which we understand and engage the world, enshrouding us as it does in an electronic cocoon of cultural values and identity messages.

Now why am I waxing so long about this?  As I process the outcome of this year's election I am searching for answers as to why an incumbent president with a remarkably good record of economic and international achievements (prior to COVID-19) apparently has failed in his bid to become the third two-term president of this millennium?  McLuhan's maxim offers an explanation that, I believe, hits the mark.  Aside from the economically paralyzing shut downs triggered by the virus, Mr. Trump's record as president should and could have carried the day for him.  That is, if he had made that record his dominant campaign message.  But in the steady drumbeat of unscripted speeches and rallies, in the overkill of tweets launched at any and all hours, and in rowdy televised cage matches pretending to be debates, our 45th president came across like a latter-day Louis XIV who, in supposedly declaring,  l'etat c'est moi, (the state—it is me!) blurred all boundaries between self and national interest.

Mr. Trump propelled himself into the presidency in 2016 on the platform that he would Make America Great.  That pledge resonated with voters to a degree that caught Democrats, Republicans and the mainstream media off guard.  Could it happen again?  While claims of present national greatness may now fall somewhere between idealism and delusion, progress was made during the last four years thanks to Trump’s efforts to make good on his campaign promises.   In most election years they would be worth celebrating and promoting.  But instead of clear and compelling recitations of those domestic, economic and international accomplishments which were his to own, we heard a repetitious litany of issues framed in black and white, us vs. them dichotomies punctuated by ad hominen characterizations of his legion of detractors and enemies:  democrats, leftists, socialists, the Squad, Green New Dealers, BLM sympathizers, former members of his administration and, above all others, the fake news media.  While some of his arguments resonated with my own suspicions and fears of America’s leftward drift, Mr. Trump’s vitriolic tone was so loud and strident that I, and I suspect many others, wanted to shout:  “you’re talking so loud I can’t hear you!” If a pro-Trump Republican was put off by the message, what must an undecided voter have felt?  It didn’t help when Mr. Trump repeatedly voiced his sad and insecure appeal for voters, particularly suburban women, to like him, as if the election were nothing more than a referendum on his personality and likability.

Four years ago I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either of the candidates, writing in an alternative choice instead.   But this year, weighing what Trump had in fact done for our country, I circled his name on my ballot.  His performance as president was a message I could embrace even though the messenger himself still left me shaking my head most of the time.  I don’t believe I was or am alone in this assessment.   In fact I believe that many of the 70+ million who cast votes for him did so in spite of his personal liabilities, preferring the devil they knew (Trump) to the devil they didn't know (Biden, Harris and the dreaded socialist Squad). 

How was it that Mr. Trump's team didn't understand this and steer him on a course where the message of his presidential record would resound more loudly and with more persuasion than the medium of his personality, as embarrassing and irritating as that has been.  Could it be that, like a fairy tale emperor in his skivvies, Mr. Trump was unwilling or even unable to hear the counsel of those who must have known better than to proceed in such a way against an opponent who looked, sounded and acted like Joe Biden.

Yes, Joe Biden, that "hail fellow well met" career politician now well past his prime, that Congressional issue-waffler whose plagiarisms, gaffs, and awkward physical touches must have created PR nightmares for his team to overcome.  Central casting couldn't have ordered up a better opponent for the incumbent to take on and defeat.  Yet this same candidate had something going for him that Mr. Trump seemed to underestimate.  Deep within his political psyche, Joe Biden knew that the medium of his self-confidence, civility, accessibility and cooperative spirit was the very message that many pandemic, riot and Trump-weary Americans were eager to embrace and support.  Even with the slimmest of resumes, Joe Biden presented the image and air of someone whom you could talk to over a beer or on a neighborhood sidewalk.  This candidate and his handlers wisely made him—his character and down-to-earth accessibility-- the message, which was a good sleight of hand to keep his adoring audiences from peeking behind the curtain to discover that the platform upon which he was running was really quite empty.  Joe, for all of his flaws, was the medium/message that offered democrats and never-Trumpers their best hope to counter a president who would never be able to match Biden’s perceived character and down-to-earth likeability.   Unbelievably, Mr. Trump’s campaign team chose to do battle on ground more favorable to his opponent—character and personality—giving up the president’s clear advantage in making his record of accomplishments the real measure of America’s progress toward greatness.

In the aftermath of the declaration of final tallies in this election--in which the contest was closer than most pollsters predicted, the tipping point for me was that Mr. Trump ran on himself rather than his record of presidential leadership.   The medium was the message.  But in point of fact, very few presidential aspirants since WWII  (when visual media began to set the tone and terms for messaging by our candidates) have been elected for which this has not been true.  And it is that fact which has once again prevailed this year as America selected Mr. Biden, whose bromide-laden message was elevated and energized by the medium of his "good guy next door" image which he so capably and believable sold. 

One week removed from election day, Mr. Trump has retreated into unaccustomed silence while his legal team pursues its predictable effort to right the wrong of this “stolen” election.   No doubt some irregularities and bogus ballots will be found in that effort.  Why should this year be any different than every election in American history?  But any election irregularities will likely not be enough to change the outcome already called and now being trumpeted throughout the land.  But without a major change in outcome, Mr. Trump will be forced to live with that label which he has made clear he cannot abide:  LOSER. 

Republicans, unlike the president, fared reasonably well in the election, a portent perhaps for future congressional and presidential victories.   But it is highly unlikely that many of their leaders will fall on their swords in support of their RINO president whom they've tolerated more than admired.  Perhaps they, like so many who voted in record numbers, just want all of this confusion and strife to end.  And herein lies the final opportunity of this outgoing president to open a door to his ultimate acceptance into that league of respectability in which most of our former presidents, even those more bruised in office than Mr. Trump, seem to find a lasting place of honor.   

Mr. Trump has two options I believe.  He can, along with another famous royal French Louis declare, "apres moi, le deluge!" (after me, the flood) and set the stage for the kind of violence and civil strife that may stir up some on the far right, much to his everlasting shame.   Or he can understand what defeated presidents can and must do to ensure that our unique republic may long endure, as a truly great president once declared.  The Medium IS the Message, as it certainly proved to be in 2020.  And only one person, Mr. Trump himself, will determine if that message is constructive and healing or bitter and divisive in the 70 odd days in which he will, like it or not, write his final coda on a presidency that has been more memorable and meaningful than his detractors will ever admit or recognize.

Postscript: It is now clear that Mr. Trump has chosen the first option, the consequences of which will make governance by compromise and civility much more difficult for our new executive and our newly reconstituted legislative assembly. My hope and prayer is that civil, moderate and honest voices will step forward to help us navigate through these very turbulent waters in which we are now floundering. The long-standing polarities (political, economic, racial and cultural) that continue to define and divide our country are crying out for men and women of substance, integrity, and wisdom to steer our now listing ship of state,

WRS (1-10-21)

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