Only one scholar has explained how this happened-- Marshall McLuhan, the media guru who died in 1980. Marshall McLuhan taught us a simple truth-- the candidate must meet the the electronic media with an attitude of insouciance.
What is insouciance? In-sou-ci-ance -- (noun) a casual lack of concern; indifference
Synonyms--lack of concern, unconcern, disinterest, lack of interest, lack of enthusiasm, apathy, nonchalance, insouciance
Marshall McLuhan made the following statement in a Saturday Evening Post magazine article he penned about the 1968 presidential election and the importance of television:
Why should TV demand sophistication and insouciance? Simply because it is a depth medium for which earnestness is fatal. Depth requires perception on many levels and, therefore, an absence of single purpose or direction. An all-at-once world, fashioned by electric information, demands a candidate full of puns and unexpected nuances. Such a man is one who knows so much about the contemporary interface of all cultures that he cannot possibly be deluded into any earnest regard for any one of them. The new changes are not moral but technological.
(Saturday Evening Post, August 10, 1968)
McLuhan's statement about the Importance of Not Being Earnest applies even more precisely to the presidential election of 2016.
The insults never turn the tables on Trump- because of his insouciance. His skin may seem thin, but... Sticks and stones may break bones, but words will never harm him.
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