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I’m feeling something building
(hexbear.net)
I think that’s true, although I think another big part of it is the character of the administration in charge at the time. The media apparatus has historically worked co-dependently with administrations to manufacture consent in ways that make sense for the moment, and I think the tone/approach/assertion of the propaganda ecosystem at a given time changes dialectically with the character of the government (and of course the technology driving the media consumption). Like the character of the propaganda is pretty different between Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump, and for a ton of reasons. But you can’t slap the chauvinism of Bush era propaganda onto the liberal dandy of Obama era and get a fit that feels right. That’s not to say presidents set the culture of the media landscape, but they certainly influence it and are influenced by it.
It kind of seems like Trump breaks the media paradigm performing this historical co-dependent function because of his own extreme narcissism. Just the absurd way he operates, and therefore also his admin around him, creates a unique gravitational center around which media organizations have to strain to orient themselves. I just don’t think they’re structured to deal with it in a short-term way.
His Truth Social posts have constantly caught the media off guard with a stream of unhinged, outrageously bold lies which they then have to orient their operations around. He’s so regally minute to minute with his actions and statements that I think creating a structured approach to manufacturing consent is almost impossible. It’s like trying to build a Jenga tower of public consent with the pieces constantly moving — it’ll crumble the minute you try to grow it.
But also, like others have said, why manufacture consent when there is no organized opposition, or I guess more importantly, no mechanisms to create organized opposition? The future crises that will be constantly unfolding as a result of climate disaster, war from the changing environment of unequal exchange, resource scarcity, and all the draconian law enforcement that will arise as a response, will do more work to prevent the working class from organizing than any media apparatus will at this point.
Honestly though when we get more coherent future presidents, I think we’ll see at least an attempt at a return to more organized forms of consent manufacturing, because that’s always more comfortable than flying by the seat Trump’s unhinged pants. Or we won’t, because the mechanism of trust in media, whatever the form, is now fundamentally broken (from material reality, from AI, from whatever), and they recognize it would be a waste of time. But I’ve learned to never underestimate the depths of cruelty American political subjects will withdraw into for the selfish preservation of their own mental, and material, comfort.
Let’s fuckin go