Noam Chomsky is a radical leftist, but he taught me more about Donald Trump than any other public intellectual.
In his 1988 work, “Manufacturing Consent,” the political activist, philosopher, and linguist described how elites manipulate public opinion — and in doing so, he anticipated the fall of Trump.
Chomsky writes that manufacturing consent is the explicit job of the news media, who spew out propaganda on behalf of those in power so as to construct political reality.
America’s mass-communication media, Chomsky says, “are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion.” Essentially, he argues that the purpose of the media is to build support for those who hold economic and political power. In this model, the media is not objective, free, or unbiased. It fixes the very premises of discourse so as to control what the public sees and understands. In this way, those in power are able to maintain control as they dictate what the media covers, and are thus able to “manufacture” the consent of the governed by molding their opinions.
In 2016, Donald Trump threatened this model. Despite vicious attacks by mainstream institutions, the corporate media, and both Republicans and Democrats, Trump prevailed and was elected president. The manufacturing consent model failed, and the governing elites had to change their strategy. But they did not change their strategy; they beat back harder.
During Trump’s presidency, the media and our governing class — politicians, public intellectuals, and members of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and universities — screamed “bloody murder” about the horror of the new administration, exhausting the public and pummeling it into submission. The public, to make the constant screaming stop, submitted to the ruling elite’s worldview, which constantly stated that Donald Trump was a very-bad-no-good-evil-racist who was on the verge of starting World War Three.
In her book, “Resistance at All Costs: How Trump Haters are Breaking America,” Kimberley Strassel describes the media’s constant fear-mongering, and, as a consequence, the molding of public opinion. Strassel writes that during the age of Trump the press “embraced its bias, joined the Resistance and declared its allegiance to one side of a partisan war. It now openly declares those who offer any fair defense of this administration as Trump ‘enablers.’ It acts as willing scribes for Democrats and former Obama officials; peddles evidence-free accusations; sources stories from people with clear political axes to grind; and closes its eyes to clear evidence of government abuse.”
During the Trump administration, the mass media did everything to paint the White House in a bad light, further cementing public opinion against the president — all to the dictum of the elites. What the elites thought of Trump the media reported as fact, blinding the general public and obscuring its understanding of political realities. This is a threat to any democratic society, for whoever has the ability to shape public opinion to his own ends holds the real power, not the people.
The people are most in power when they are able to decipher political reality themselves, and not be swayed by a one-sided, biased, and corrupt mass media. This is why the people were most in power when Trump was elected. Trump was a repudiation of the neoliberal governing class, and even though he was painted as a villain by that class, enough people rejected that characterization and voted for him. The manufacturing consent model was disrupted, the elites lost their grip, and Trump was sent to the White House.
Throughout his entire presidency, Trump was characterized as “unpresidential,” lacking the tone and manners fit for a president. His brazen characteristics were probably one of the most important features Trump offered, as they represented a symbolic repudiation of the type of person who principally composes the ruling class (and hence, manufactures consent). Those who rejected Trump because of his character did not understand that was his primary appeal. Trump was the first non-politician in the White House in a long time, and voters recognized that. They were tired of slick-talking cogs who force open borders, sexual immorality, and East Coast orthodoxy down their throats. Trump was unabashedly Trump, and people realized they could rely on that. Trump was (and is) important because he represented voters’ ability to think outside of the institutions that manufacture their consent.
But after a world-wide pandemic, a summer of burning cities, and bitter partisanship, the elites molded public opinion back in their favor, and Trump only served one term. Joe Biden is now president, and the manufacturing consent model rages on. Puff pieces on the 46th president come out on the daily (a nice respite from the weeping and gnashing of teeth that marked coverage of the 45th). There are actual news pieces about Biden’s choice of pants (“A Grateful Nation is Relieved to Once Again Have a President Who Wears Jeans,” the Washingtonian gushed). The New York Times, in their front-page story on Jan. 21, revealed how they were feeling about retaking power: “Biden Inaugurated, ‘Nightmare is Over.’” And they’re terrified they will lose control again. The enigma of Trump remains.
Victoria Marshall is a senior George Washington Fellow studying politics. She is the Science & Tech Editor for the Collegian.