For our times we can update Samuel Johnson’s famous remark about patriotism: fear is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
If historians were looking for a label to characterize the dominant theme in our public discourse these days they could do no better than call it “The Age of Fear.” It may be true that crime rates in most parts of the country have generally fallen, and that the chances of being the victim of terrorist attack are less likely than getting struck by lightning. Nonetheless, we live in an age where too many voices in our political and news-gathering systems depend on fear as their most reliable theme. Acts of terrorism like the recent attack in Manchester England are sufficient for cable news networks, among others, to go into narrow and repetitive coverage. Jerky cell phone videos add all of the video they need to endlessly mull the imagined ghosts in the room, with the added effect of overstated conclusions that we are not safe and terrorism is rampant.
The same thread is endlessly recycled by the President, who uses much of his public rhetoric to focus on threats allegedly coming from undocumented immigrants, Syrian refugees, Muslim extremists, Mexican drug smugglers, Chinese banks, Australia, Germany, to mention just a few from his long list. We learned that we were in for a three-alarm Presidency when Donald Trump broke tradition in his inaugural address to rehash warnings that were endlessly recycled to his followers on the campaign trail. He talked of the “American carnage” of too few jobs, insecure borders, abuse at the hands of our allies and more. The speech was significantly out of the norm: less a ritual celebration of the transfer of presidential power than a victim’s list of grievances against others. And it surely resonated then as it does now with too many Americans with who have little patience to deal with the complexities of modern life. They do not know that the world is generally more understandable and actually less threatening if understood in 2000-word clarifications rather than 20-word rants.
Because we are hardwired first for survival, we look for threats before opportunities; self-preservation before self-actualization.
We can update Samuel Johnson’s famous remark about patriotism and reset it in our times: fear is the last refuge of a scoundrel. It’s easy if not responsible for a demagogue to conjure malevolent ghosts in our midst. This is the rhetorical thread that connects figures from the margins of our civil life as diverse as “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, Huey Long, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace and any number of public figures who built a political base by motivating concerns about “Them.” Using this thread usually provides an unearned advantage. Those nameless others inside and beyond our borders are almost always portrayed as immoral, unclean or dangerously powerful. The irony is that most Americans have no right to claim a nativist ideology. Our ancestors came from somewhere else. Even so, it thrives.
Fear appeals gain a natural advantage from the human impulse to fantasize about what we do not fully know or understand. Fear always builds from the predicate of potential harm we can imagine. Because we are creatures hardwired first for survival, we look for threats before opportunities; self-preservation before self-actualization. As any lover of film-noir knows, another person’s shadow is all we need to envision the worst. It follows that verbalizing threats against survival is easily rewarded. The beneficiaries may be political scoundrels, cable news companies, and various agents who have seemingly simple solutions to sell: everything from home security alarms to firearms to grotesque projects like a massive border wall.
Because Donald Trump keeps violating the norms of the Presidency, mainstream journalists tend to write their own narratives rather than report on his. If Trump truly wants “good press,” he will need to get beyond defensive jeremiads.
President Trump seems remarkably inept at using the rhetorical tools available to him. He thinks small using social media rants when he could be projecting the aspirations for his administration. Because he keeps violating the norms of the Presidency, journalists tend to write their own narratives rather than merely paraphrase these defensive jeremiads.
And so we are at an impasse where the President is threatening to pull back from daily briefings. He’s right to be concerned. As they stand they are defensive affairs, bereft of details on new ideas and proposals. Functionally they are cross-examination sessions, with the press asking and too rarely receiving basic information. Little wonder they are now covered “live” not only by cable news; there are also streamed by online news sources as well. As things stand, covering the Trump administration is like living next to a highway intersection where this is a fender-bender several times a day. It’s hard to look away.
In truth, news is rarely made at the site of what was once the White House swimming pool, even while the networks hype the daily confrontations. Reporters fill the cramped press space , hanging on every syllable and angry correction issued from the defensive Press Secretary, Sean Spicer. They would like clarity on some of the ambiguities that have accumulated in the last 24 hours. Like all press secretaries, Spicer is usually determined to be as creative with the truth and non-committal as possible. He’s also become comfortable issuing his own warnings on how the press should be doing their job.
To be sure, it can’t be much fun to be in Spicer’s shoes. His boss can change his mind faster than a quarterback trying to recover from a busted play.
As things stand, covering the Trump administration is like living next to a highway intersection where this is a fender-bender several times a day. It’s hard to look away.
So how should the press respond to a president that saves key opinions and grand gestures for himself? It’s probably not by sitting in the White House press room. The white house beat is a journalistic irony. It typically goes to a reporter as a reward. And yet it means functioning in a small and restricted space with access to only very guarded sources. Like a musician who has landed a long-term job playing in the pit of a broadway show, the work is admirably steady. Any number of competitors would like the gig. But it can be professionally numbing.
It’s worth remembering that one of America’s most iconic reporters, I.F. Stone, made it a hallmark of his journalism to not sit through formal press briefings and most other presidential events. He was more likely to spend time engaged in close reading of an agency report. Stone was a print journalist. He felt no urgency to find interesting pictures. He didn’t have to be present for the “show.” He could write about ideas, policy, and the merits of different approaches without waiting for a leader to mention the subject.
Every good journalist carries the genes of an investigative reporter like Stone. We and they just have to get beyond the empty theatrics.
Trump is a showman, a performance artist. Journalists are going to have to become smarter to learn what is really going on.
This kind of digging lives on with news gatherers like Pro-Publica, Mother Jones, Politico, and some of the nation’s biggest and revived newspapers. Think of the recent “Best Picture” Oscar winner, Spotlight (2015), which recreated the meticulous digging that allowed reporters at the Boston Globe to challenge official church narratives on peodophiles still being protected. Press conferences could have never given the people of Boston what they needed to know.
Trump is a showman, a performance artist. Journalists are going to have to become smarter in covering the Presidency if they want to know what is going on. Listening to him or his surrogates is not apt to yield much insight into the rationales for government actions.
Luckily, as the saying goes, Washington is the only ship of state that leaks from the top. There seems to be no shortage of informed senior level sources in the Administration who can help journalists understand the thinking of the Trump Administration. But we will have to give up our fascination with, among other things, the matinee sideshow of magical thinking that is the daily White House briefing.
I once wrote a book on politics and theater (Center Stage, 2007). At the time it made sense because so many politicos and journalists clearly wanted to master and manage news in an entertainment-dominated environment. Yet that perspective is now too facile; the national’s capital must be more than just another center for the performing arts. Leadership needs to include the mastery of leadership skills: conciliation, a head for details and social effects, an interest in consultation with others, and the grace to know when not to speak. A President that touts his success as a reality tv star needs to get serious if his administration is to be a match for the quick studies in the national press.
