Realities Showtime

By Bob Travica

A man with a pillow of heavily sprayed blond hair covering his head stared at his face in the mirror, pointed his index finger toward it, and yelled, “you’re fired!” This scene happened in the episode The 100^th Day of the reality show Apprentice in the White House.

At the same time, another TV channel played the reality Russian Connection with CNN anchors in the lead role. A choir of journalists was chanting: Im-peee-aaa-chment!…

And yet another reality titled Die Hard Cold Warriors played across channels, featuring politicians and alleged experts with their mind stuck in the past.

Apprentice in the White House

Since the beginning of 2017 and a new crew’s settling in the White House, we are overwhelmed with reality shows. First of all, the new President Donald Trump continued playing his favorite reality role but now in the White House. True, the scene above is this author’s scenario. But if Mr. Trump is true to his business executive role in Apprentice, he should fire himself.

In the first 100 days of President Trump’s reign, he did not inch toward accomplishing any of his campaign promises – border security, health care reform, or a change of course in foreign policy. I am not judging yet whether this is good or bad, just saying that he didn’t deliver, as he as a CEO would expect from his apprentices. And there is a bunch of other fights lost, for the time being, the more notable being the war on media, and reshuffling the intelligence agencies’ empire.

Has President Trump tried? Oh yeah, and maybe too much for really a short time. Trump acted as a bankruptcy executive tasked to turn a company around overnight. And that’s where the indication of the true trouble with Mr. Trump lies. It is not as much in the fact that President Trump’s actions failed as it is in his dogged insisting on executive orders. Trump attempted to resolve big political issues by bypassing the entire political system and running the country like his own company. While constitutionally legitimate, his executive orders didn’t work. Aggregation of political interests and support building takes a skill, hard negotiation, and art of deal making (supposedly a strength of businessman Trump). But we’ve seen none of this. President Trump’s method failed so far, and I’d say for good. Otherwise, the American political system would have indicated a turn from the republic to a monarchy.

In other words, President Trump has shown very clearly that, thus far, he cannot move a bit the Washington political establishment from its status-quo. Yet, his chief differentiating characteristic during the election campaign was that he was a fresh, unorthodox politician who was going to shake up the establishment. Let’s take foreign policy as an example of this resilient inertia. Although it never played a big role in differentiating American politicians, foreign policy might turn to be Trump’s deadly frailty.

Russian Connection

Trump was going to release the pressure on the Middle East, Europe, and Russia and to focus on the Far East. But look what’s happening. He fires dozens of missiles on a Syrian military’s base (and some Russians in it), tones down the NATO-bashing rhetoric (except for the cost sharing grudge), and can’t engage Russia in anything. On the contrary, Trump is getting cornered by the reality Russian Connection, an endless saga about the alleged influence of Russia in American Presidential elections. CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other media heavyweights are peddling the show. It keeps citing/leaking known and never-to-be-known sources, parading supposed experts, and never tiring of twists and turns.

In spite of the media’s usual pretense on the exclusive truth, evidence used in Russian Connection is weaker than plot logic in a detective mystery paperback. For instance, the main intelligence report produced by three security agencies (FBI, CIA, and NSA), which was leaked to the public last January and embraced with glee by the media, is merely a C-grade work (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3254237/Russia-Hack-Report.pdf). It is based on the spies’ hear-say, without material evidence, and without a substantiated, shared conclusion. Its main point is that actions of Russian intelligence worked against candidate Hillary Clinton and in favor of candidate Trump. 

The report wastes some 50% of the space on criticizing the cable network Russia TV (RT). Watch this! American spies discovered that a state-budgeted TV station, which broadcasts globally, may influence Joe Does’ mind. Well, I can definitely see some issues here. First, I figure that some spies were crushing the couch for watching carefully a propaganda program. Is this really the best way to spend the spying buck? Another alarming issue is that the RT-watching spies may get influenced by the very same propaganda they spy on, if it’s indeed so powerful. Yet another perfidious way of Russia’s meddling with the American state, which the security agencies sucked in?

The intelligence report further makes a curious excursion into a troll land. It asserts that the Russian intelligence did most of the damaging work via paid social media users or “trolls” (quotes in the original). A shadowy figure of Guccifer 2.0 is singled out and portrayed as an independent Romanian hacker who claimed to be a Russian, while he was actually more than one person. It is curious that the media didn’t pick this fairy-tallish twist since it is potentially a goldmine for the reality script. Just try to imagine the black magic wizard Putin commanding an army of social media trolls who block the way to good princess Hillary Clinton, so she can’t reach the throne. Trolls got under the skin (possibly in the hair expanse too) of Donald Trump and control him... I expect that the media put the trolls into Russian Connection as soon as they run out of juicy twists.

By the way, in spite of the horrendous propaganda and all the trolls and what have you, the intelligence report emphasizes that a judgment on the impact of Russia on the election results can’t be made because “the intelligence community does not analyze US political processes or US public opinion.” But the media know better, of course, so they already established such an impact. Russian Connection must be thrillingly assertive, not lukewarm iffy.

True, some parts of the scenario didn’t spin the plot as hoped. For example, the episode Trump Meets Mata Hari in Moscow didn’t blast as expected. CNN started a buzz on an intelligence report soon accessible on the Internet, which insinuated that Trump had sexual fun on his business trips to Russia; Russian agents videoed that, and now Trump is being blackmailed to support Russian interest. The report turned to be a total bogus. Clumsy scriptwriters never apologized to anyone.

Die Hard Cold Warriors

Russian Connection obscures a logical question, who is responsible for failing to prevent the alleged intrusions into the Presidential elections? Isn’t that an important question? It surely is, but the media playing Russian Connection haven’t even touched on it. Why? Well, this reality show can be fully understood in connection with its sibling - Die Hard Cold Warriors. The show features the old guard political likes of John McCain (Republican) and their somewhat younger followers, H. Clinton (Democrat) being the most visible. The actors reprimand and scold President Trump for his heretic thoughts of getting at better terms with Russia and cooling down the chaos in Syria. Just think of the recent episode Grandpa’s Advice.

Old Henry Kissinger visited President Trump in the White House before the President’s first foreign trip, and the media reported delightfully about Kissinger’s “schooling the President.” What could this schooling be about? Easy to guess. Something like: NATO is our great asset; we must keep protecting our allies in Europe; gotta sell them the missile interceptor system that can be lots of dough for us but it still sells hard; Russia can’t ever be a friend (why the interceptor system and NATO if we befriend her?); the torch of extremist Islam must keep burning in the Middle East and around, so that our international policing endures and we continue selling arms…

A clear message of Die Hard Cold Warriors is that no diversion from Cold War foreign policy can be. The U.S. must preserve its hegemony by continuing the active engagement in global affairs. Trump’s isolationist motto “America first” is just an apprentice’s dream. As a matter of fact, the apprentice has no means of fighting it out. Rather, he’s got his hands tied as he passed foreign policy making to Pentagon. And what do trigger-happy generals do? They fire 59 missiles on Syria, drop the largest bomb in Afghanistan, kill, injure, burn and destroy. President Trump’s political enemies applaud him, which makes no sense. Even an apprentice should be able to understand that.

Realities continue and it remains to be seen whether Apprentice in the White House will cast a makeover of the main character into a master. Could we see some of the touted deal-making skills of businessman Trump at play in politics? Still, Russian Connection and Die Hard Cold Warriors will be competing headlong to push Apprentice in the White House off the charts.

It's the Paper, Silly!

It’s the Paper, Silly!

By Bob Travica

The Oscar folks screwed it royally at the awards ceremony on February 26, 2017. It was announced first that the film La, La Land was the best picture (the most prestigious of all Oscars), only to shuffle the award to the movie Moonlight minutes later. The announcer Warren Beatty hesitated when he opened the envelope with the card supposedly naming the winner, and stared at his partner Faye Dunaway. She grabbed the envelope from his hand and read: “La, La Land!” The movie’s producers came to the stage, began thank-you speeches, and then suddenly a chaos descended onto the stage. New faces, lots of commotion, a theater play in which all the actors forgot the script.

Finally, a shocking announcement by the producers of La, La Land made the cut: Moonlight has won, we lost. Warren Beatty showed another card naming Moonlight as the winner and explained that he was confused reading “Emma Stone, La, La Land,” so he hesitated in his first announcement. (Mrs. Stone had already taken her Oscar for the best actress earlier that night.)

Everybody was confused not the least the people onstage. Although Warren and Faye were invited as announcers in honor of the 50^th anniversary of their cult movie Bonnie and Clyde, everybody sensed that the happening was not some stunt they pulled off. Nor was it a trick of host Jimmy Kimmel who looked as lost as anybody else, after clowning around with politics and other stuff the whole night. And the renegades Bonnie and Clyde were shot mortally again, this time on a big hall stage. But the killer was a part of the mystery. Even with Oscar's placing in the right hands, nobody still had a clue of how come all the mess happened. 

In the analysis that followed, it was established that a representative of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) handed in a wrong envelope to Warren. PwC (or the companies making it today) has been tallying votes, printing Oscar cards, and handling the award procedure for over 80 years. The problematic envelope was one of two envelopes made for announcing Oscar winners. In general, the announcement procedure involves one PwC rep on each side of the stage tasked with passing an envelope to an announcer, as it is uncertain which side the announcer will come from. The rep that handed in the backup envelope for the best actress was lost in his tweeting at a critical moment when Warren and Faye entered from his side, and the blunder unfolded. He passed the envelope for the already announced Oscar referring to La, La Land.

PwC has claimed that their Oscar procedures are fault-free and that each detail was thought out to perfection. Well, maybe so, but for the human factor and the inherent risk of drawing again an already “spent” (backup) envelope. But my real concern is with maintaining a paper trail that spans decades. Would it not be safer to keep the list of Oscar winners electronically and to render it from a computer to a teleprompter and a big screen, according to the ceremony protocol? The announcers could still be there, albeit relieved from opening envelopes. Once a winner name appears on their teleprompter, they can read it and then it would appear on the big screen. Wouldn’t such a procedure be overall better? Isn’t it the paper, silly, that eventually exploded into the PwC face?

If security is a reason for not moving to the e-trail, that cannot be a serious argument because there is a plenty of means of ensuring the security of this procedure. Is it the tradition, perhaps? If so, what justifies sticking to it when it is apparently prone to errors? If it is about a traditional imagery of paper cards and envelopes, the big screen can show an envelope being in the process of opening, and a paper card popping out of it. This is Hollywood, isn’t it? Filming a tradition could be done in a zillion of creative ways. At any rate, what does the sticking to the paper trail in this electronic era speak of a technological vision of the implicated accounting and consulting firm?

The Breaking News: Trump Tweeted

By Bob Travica

Donald Trump will move to the American Presidential office in January 2017. In my public speeches during 2016, I forecasted this outcome. My reasons were quite simple: (1) American voters really care just about their pocketbook, (2) Poking the American dream can add some weight, and (3) The contender, Hillary Clinton, was a too weak candidate.

I won’t discuss in detail each reason, but just want to warn various pundits to never underestimate the first reason. It overshadows everything else, including the foreign policy (of which the typical voter has no clue), and transgressions of ethics, such as dirty language, lies and manipulations (which pack the world of entertainment, media, politics and business, anyway), and the like “issues.” Trump put all his trumps behind the first reason.

Mrs. Clinton underperformed on reason 1, totally neglected reason 2, and focused on these marginal things. Add to this her unsatisfactory performance as the Secretary of State in the Obama government (which has got her fired) and her long tenure in politics (which today is a liability in the eyes of the apathetic American voter). This explains reason 3.

The media and pollsters didn’t see Trump’s win in elections coming. This failure speaks volumes of a superficiality characterizing the media’s approach to elections. In the case of TV, the approach was a blend of empiricism and secondary analysis. There was too much focusing on polling (which lacked validity) and on daily occurrences in the worlds of politics and media. As if the American society is a reality show spun unpredictably by random actions of the actors. As if the shrinking of the middle class has not become endemic. As if the Occupy movement and the mass outrage against the one percent of the wealthiest has never happened. As if the rusting of the once prosperous industrial zones has not pushed a massive workforce out and into marginal, low-paid jobs. As if the American society is not deeply divided also on the political and ethno/racial basis. Still, the spinners of the mass reality show were hoping that the people would care more about a private, harassing babbling of the former reality host turned Presidential candidate than any of these things. How narrow-minded!

The failure of media to predict Trump’s win could be seen in the other light too. More precisely, one could wonder about the media’s dogmatic insistence that Trump was not a serious candidate and, therefore, was incapable of winning. The closer the election was, the more some media dropped Trump from their radar screen and assumed that Clinton’s win was a done deal. One may wonder, why did the media behave this way? Was this part of supporting the Clinton camp? The diligence and ferocity with which the media trampled Trump could lead to such a hypothesis. But testing it would involve unveiling the ties between the implicated media and Democratic Party, along with its corporate interest backing.

The major American media openly dislike Trump and don’t hesitate to show it. They didn’t spare ammunition while covering Trump’s outrageous campaigning moves calculated to entertain and shock. (For more on Trump’s manipulation of old and new media see my previous blog.) The immediate post-election coverage consists of Anti-Trump street protests, criticizing Trump for “softening” on extreme campaign promises (the same ones the media criticized during the campaign), suspecting Trump’s choices of officials, more criticism of Trump as for connecting to the public personalities he criticized during the campaign (while media “wish” that he “brings the nation together”).

In this interim period between Trump's mansions and the White House, the old media also punch Trump for being “lenient” toward Russia’s President who “influenced” American Presidential elections via Wiki Leaks. Overwhelmed with a patriotic zeal, the media ignore totally some really important questions, such as how could this happen, if it did? Who is responsible? Did Wiki Leaks really influence the voters? How many? All in all, the old media are just continuing to demonstrate their misreading of the business mogul/entertainer turned the President-Elect. Media cannot fathom the lesson Trump keeps broadcasting about the twisted character of media-ted politics.

Old media’s hate of Trump is deeply rooted and may be traced down to a basic instinct of survival. For the starters, Trump uses a hefty part of the media time and space without paying for it. During the campaign, the media tracked each step of his and amplified it through a prolonged rambling, a.k.a. “analysis”. Media couldn’t do anything but suck it, since Trump was delivering the media’s manna – scandals. Of course, a scandalous coverage increased the program ratings and brought more of the advertising money to media. That’s actually why they had to cover Trump before he became the President-Elect.

Second, Trump additionally undercuts the media’s revenues by choosing to bypass them. As a passionate tweetee (a Tweeter user), and not shy of other new media either, Trump proves that he needs not TV and newspapers as loudspeakers for his statements. The media keep losing a precious connection power, based on the privileges of special access to informing sources, gate-keeping and content filtering. The bell tolls for an era in old media’s historical trajectory. Now, the breaking news on CNN is not “Mr. Trump stated for our program…”, but rather “Trump tweeted…” The old media must cover new media which are totally out of their control. An inescapable move that, on the long run, is as clumsy as shooting one’s own foot.

Third, old media hate Trump because he equals them in spin-doctoring skills. Mastering impression management, keeping the audience on tiptoes, creating an endless reality circus… Trump does all this as effectively as the old media do. He steals the daily bread from the media’s hands, and so in a professional sense. Increasingly confused, the old media must cover an unorthodox public figure even when he drags them into his fairy tallish mansions and babble-Tweets the first thing he’s got on mind.

All in all, Trump Tasers the old media into the heart. But he doesn’t intend to kill them, just to put them in a different place than the media have been used to. Is this a real politician and real politics? But wait, who’s ever said that the mediated politicians and politics must be real? Politicians show their real face and do real politics just on the backstage, invisible to the mass audience. The old media have for long been an accomplice in this cover-up. Trump tears up the curtain by turning the public political play into a grotesque.  

The intrusion of new media into big politics may have as profound effects as the political insertion of radio and TV had in their times. Is this a change for better, looking from the perspective of democracy? Not necessarily. New media are as prone to manipulation as old media, except that the former is clear about it while the latter pretends the (journalistic) truth. Trump could easily start his own TV, radio, an old media empire. But that would mean falling back to the mediated politics orthodoxy. If nothing else comes out of Trump’s trumping or - if you will - trumpery, it is the realization that the model of parliamentary democracy, which is based on alienated parties and accompanying old media, has worn out.