If you've been looking for an insight into Donald Trump that you cannot get from his loyal friends on Fox News of his detractors on MSNBC we have an insider who understands this President and his Administration. Our guide to the Trump brain is none other than Omarosa, the former Celebrity Apprentice star. Omarosa said Trump is a reality star and this is the start of Season 3.
Omarosa Manigault had great insights into how Reality TV keeps a show rocking for Season 3.
At the beginning of Season 3, the Hero often becomes the Heel.
A Heel is another term for villain. Trump may make himself a Heel for Season 3 so he can magically transform into a Hero for Season 4 and the 2020 election.
All this seemed farfetched until I heard Trump skewer John McCain, recently deceased Senator from Arizona and Vietnam War POW and war hero. Why attack Senator McCain? No good reason unless you want to keep your name at the top of the newsfeed.
Trump does know how change and movement keeps the Reality TV show fresh and alive. The whole notion of choosing Hero or Heel is very reminiscent of Vince McMahon and the WWE. Wrestlers decide in the locker room much of what will happen that night in the ring. They prepare themselves for the body slams and the folded metal chairs exploding against their foreheads.
The WWE kind of control and planning appeals to Trump's sense of the benefits of controlling the message.
Omarosa showed a talent for survival on Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump was impressed enough to carry her to the White Office. She bucked and complained when it was time for her to go. She demonstrated and ego and narcissism approaching the superhuman self-love of her mentor Mr. Trump. It takes one to know one.
Recognize the Trump election as America choosing Trump TV over Hillary TV. He definitely had media mastery over Hillary. Barack Obama snuck up on Hillary and defeated her partly because Barack was more watchable than Hillary.
Trump is a bare knuckles brawler who prefers election fights over governing. As President he has elevated his family's financial gains over the country's welfare. He has been consistent in his self-aggrandizement.
And now we get to look forward to the nicknames! Who will be the next Low Energy Jeb Bush... etc.? Elizabeth Warren struggles from under the Pocahontas label and may not escape it. Trump not only creates his own brand, he brands others and they continue to feel the sting for years afterward. Just like pro wrestling-- it's raw and over the top with good guys, bad guys and lots of trash talk.
And we keep watching.
Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fox News. Show all posts
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Stop Making Sense: politics as theater
Stop Making Sense... for the game has changed.
It may be worth mentioning ... with the computer there has risen the possibility of extending consciousness itself as a technological environment. If this is to be done, it cannot be done on the basis of any existing notion of rationality.-- 1971 (Marshall McLuhan)
Marshall McLuhan died in 1980 but remains the only man who understands the computer/ internet age, an age he predicted with absolute accuracy. McLuhan knew that computer technology would shift the individual's "central nervous system into the electro-magnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well."-- 1964.
That means your brain and central nervous system are right there in the cellphone you are grasping. You have uploaded your thoughts and emotions into Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. You are vibrating with the universe. The world is one big city. The global village... as McLuhan so aptly named this world we now inhabit. You, and all of us, and Trump, our tribal leader, are family.
So this new world has you scared. We are all sitting around the electronic campfire and people are shouting weird things into the air. These thoughts, the fake news, the insane fears, the terrorism, the 11 year old boy in the Bronx using a knife to protect his mother from an intruder to their apartment... all of that, along with the Kardashians, Sean Spicer, Melissa McCarthy, etc., all spinning around your brain and spinal chord thanks to that powerful computer in your hand. You are the right, you are the left, you are all of it.
And most prevalent of all images is the image of Donald Trump, that orange-haired image has been burned into your consciousness. His name is on everybody's lips. The cable news follows his every exhalation and exultation. You wince-- how did he work himself into your consciousness? You and I are Trump.
I notice that Trump remains ahead of the men and women of the news. They are stuck in the print era like newsmen out of the screwball classic His Girl Friday. All they lack are Cary Grant's fedora and the clever lines of dialogue. The television newspeople-- still called "the press"-- struggle to find rationality in Donald Trump's ravings and whine about fake news and alternative versions of reality. The game has changed and Trump rubs it in with references to "the failing New York Times."
The New York Times worldview, the serious, sober reporting from the Gray Lady, falls to pieces in the lightning war of electrons-- the all spin, all the time world in which we presently live. If you are waiting for Truth... fuhgeddaboutit.
Truth has given way to theater and image-making. Trump knows it and discovered it from his experience with the New York City tabloid newspapers-- not the New York Times.
Every day another drama-- just like the tabloid covers of the New York Post (conservative) and the New York Daily News (liberal).
The difference between now and just a few years back is the depth of our involvement. The Social Network has us all involved. And it moves at the speed of light. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. The master of the "No Spin Zone" got spun like a top and left by the curb by Fox News. I don't think O'Reilly got fired because Rupert Murdoch and his sons found new moral convictions about the rights of women. The global village decided to shun O'Reilly. Twenty-first Century Fox quickly jumped aboard.
The Fox News empire knows that the electronic network electrocutes quickly. They didn't have time to take a poll-- they stuck their fingers in the air and felt the electronic wind blowing hard against O'Reilly's bullying, sexist tendencies. They didn't want to piss off a whole gender-- and O'Reilly hit the road, $25 million in his pocket to ease the pain. And, in some strange way, we feel Bill's pain. After all, we got to know him so well.
An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness.-- 1964 (Marshall McLuhan)
references:
The Talking Heads album-- Stop Making Sense (1977)--
McLuhan quotes from Essential McLuhan (1995)-- p. 296.
"Piss off a whole gender..."-- this line taken from Aziz Anasari's monologue on SNL
It may be worth mentioning ... with the computer there has risen the possibility of extending consciousness itself as a technological environment. If this is to be done, it cannot be done on the basis of any existing notion of rationality.-- 1971 (Marshall McLuhan)
Marshall McLuhan died in 1980 but remains the only man who understands the computer/ internet age, an age he predicted with absolute accuracy. McLuhan knew that computer technology would shift the individual's "central nervous system into the electro-magnetic technology, it is but a further stage to transfer our consciousness to the computer world as well."-- 1964.
That means your brain and central nervous system are right there in the cellphone you are grasping. You have uploaded your thoughts and emotions into Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter. You are vibrating with the universe. The world is one big city. The global village... as McLuhan so aptly named this world we now inhabit. You, and all of us, and Trump, our tribal leader, are family.
So this new world has you scared. We are all sitting around the electronic campfire and people are shouting weird things into the air. These thoughts, the fake news, the insane fears, the terrorism, the 11 year old boy in the Bronx using a knife to protect his mother from an intruder to their apartment... all of that, along with the Kardashians, Sean Spicer, Melissa McCarthy, etc., all spinning around your brain and spinal chord thanks to that powerful computer in your hand. You are the right, you are the left, you are all of it.
And most prevalent of all images is the image of Donald Trump, that orange-haired image has been burned into your consciousness. His name is on everybody's lips. The cable news follows his every exhalation and exultation. You wince-- how did he work himself into your consciousness? You and I are Trump.
I notice that Trump remains ahead of the men and women of the news. They are stuck in the print era like newsmen out of the screwball classic His Girl Friday. All they lack are Cary Grant's fedora and the clever lines of dialogue. The television newspeople-- still called "the press"-- struggle to find rationality in Donald Trump's ravings and whine about fake news and alternative versions of reality. The game has changed and Trump rubs it in with references to "the failing New York Times."
The New York Times worldview, the serious, sober reporting from the Gray Lady, falls to pieces in the lightning war of electrons-- the all spin, all the time world in which we presently live. If you are waiting for Truth... fuhgeddaboutit.
Truth has given way to theater and image-making. Trump knows it and discovered it from his experience with the New York City tabloid newspapers-- not the New York Times.
Every day another drama-- just like the tabloid covers of the New York Post (conservative) and the New York Daily News (liberal).
The difference between now and just a few years back is the depth of our involvement. The Social Network has us all involved. And it moves at the speed of light. Just ask Bill O'Reilly. The master of the "No Spin Zone" got spun like a top and left by the curb by Fox News. I don't think O'Reilly got fired because Rupert Murdoch and his sons found new moral convictions about the rights of women. The global village decided to shun O'Reilly. Twenty-first Century Fox quickly jumped aboard.
The Fox News empire knows that the electronic network electrocutes quickly. They didn't have time to take a poll-- they stuck their fingers in the air and felt the electronic wind blowing hard against O'Reilly's bullying, sexist tendencies. They didn't want to piss off a whole gender-- and O'Reilly hit the road, $25 million in his pocket to ease the pain. And, in some strange way, we feel Bill's pain. After all, we got to know him so well.
An external consensus or conscience is now as necessary as private consciousness.-- 1964 (Marshall McLuhan)
references:
The Talking Heads album-- Stop Making Sense (1977)--
McLuhan quotes from Essential McLuhan (1995)-- p. 296.
"Piss off a whole gender..."-- this line taken from Aziz Anasari's monologue on SNL
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Bill O'Reilly-- Get a Life, Dude
Bill O'Reilly, the 6 ft 5 in gargantuan of a TV performer, and host of the The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News, has been lording it over us for many years. He claims to be a good Catholic boy from humble roots on Long Island, New York. Bill and I are both from Long Island-- and we are exactly the same age.
O'Reilly calls himself a traditionalist, claiming to be open-minded on political matters. Says he loves the working class, the regular guy, the average American. He is a hero, a talented broadcaster and spokesman for conservative viewers of Fox. That's cool. We're all entitled to a political viewpoint. He portrayed himself as a rational student of world events but truly has never been welcoming to people with viewpoints at odds with his own. He kind of bullies on the air.
But here's the thing. How did a guy, supposedly so smart, forget the golden rule for avoiding workplace romance... Don't get your honey where you get your money. O'Reilly has a net worth of $85 million, an immense fortune, and the power that comes with having the highest rated show on cable news. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac, with money a close second. Bill has both power and money. He should have no problem attracting women, even at 67 years of age. Does he really have to limit his sexual hunting to the Fox News office place?
Makes no sense-- and you even have to wonder if behind it all Mr. Bill O'Reilly wanted to get caught. I mean come on, New York City is full of beautiful women. Many would be discreet about sharing intimacy with a famous TV personality, O'Reilly is possibly the most successful TV performer out there.
And then there's the first lawsuit, the 2004 situation with Andrea Mackris, a former producer for his show. She sued O'Reilly but dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against O'Reilly after reportedly receiving a $9 million bucks payout. That was the famous loofah/falafel shower fantasy:
Her complaint alleged that in phone conversations, O'Reilly had "advised her to use a vibrator and told her about sexual fantasies involving her" and an allegation that he threatened that if she reported his behavior, "Roger Ailes...will go after you...Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes, and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming." (Wikipedia)
So, Bill had an unpleasant workplace experience back in 2004, gets burned for $9 million, and goes back for more! I would call that Catholic guilt on steroids. It's not okay for me to make all this money, have all this success, and so I won't pursue a beautiful companion by simply walking over to a Manhattan bar/club frequented by super models. No, that's too easy. Instead, I'll hound the women I work with-- so I can be rapped over the knuckles with a ruler by Mother Superior. And that Mother Superior is the Social Network-- the biggest network of them all.
Bill and his show have been totally savaged across the Internet and into the real world. The O'Reilly Factor sponsors are leaving faster his show faster than a woman racing away from a guy with a cold sore. Try to No Spin that one.
O'Reilly calls himself a traditionalist, claiming to be open-minded on political matters. Says he loves the working class, the regular guy, the average American. He is a hero, a talented broadcaster and spokesman for conservative viewers of Fox. That's cool. We're all entitled to a political viewpoint. He portrayed himself as a rational student of world events but truly has never been welcoming to people with viewpoints at odds with his own. He kind of bullies on the air.
But here's the thing. How did a guy, supposedly so smart, forget the golden rule for avoiding workplace romance... Don't get your honey where you get your money. O'Reilly has a net worth of $85 million, an immense fortune, and the power that comes with having the highest rated show on cable news. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac, with money a close second. Bill has both power and money. He should have no problem attracting women, even at 67 years of age. Does he really have to limit his sexual hunting to the Fox News office place?
Makes no sense-- and you even have to wonder if behind it all Mr. Bill O'Reilly wanted to get caught. I mean come on, New York City is full of beautiful women. Many would be discreet about sharing intimacy with a famous TV personality, O'Reilly is possibly the most successful TV performer out there.
And then there's the first lawsuit, the 2004 situation with Andrea Mackris, a former producer for his show. She sued O'Reilly but dropped her sexual assault lawsuit against O'Reilly after reportedly receiving a $9 million bucks payout. That was the famous loofah/falafel shower fantasy:
Her complaint alleged that in phone conversations, O'Reilly had "advised her to use a vibrator and told her about sexual fantasies involving her" and an allegation that he threatened that if she reported his behavior, "Roger Ailes...will go after you...Ailes operates behind the scenes, strategizes, and makes things happen so that one day BAM! The person gets what's coming to them but never sees it coming." (Wikipedia)
So, Bill had an unpleasant workplace experience back in 2004, gets burned for $9 million, and goes back for more! I would call that Catholic guilt on steroids. It's not okay for me to make all this money, have all this success, and so I won't pursue a beautiful companion by simply walking over to a Manhattan bar/club frequented by super models. No, that's too easy. Instead, I'll hound the women I work with-- so I can be rapped over the knuckles with a ruler by Mother Superior. And that Mother Superior is the Social Network-- the biggest network of them all.
Bill and his show have been totally savaged across the Internet and into the real world. The O'Reilly Factor sponsors are leaving faster his show faster than a woman racing away from a guy with a cold sore. Try to No Spin that one.
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