TV networks' pathetic capitulation to Trump
Why in the world are major television networks giving a free primetime slot to President Trump on Tuesday evening?
Why in the world are major television networks giving a free primetime slot to President Trump on Tuesday evening? When Barack Obama asked for a similar arrangement in order to address the subject of immigration in November 2014, NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox all refused on the grounds that his remarks would be “political,” as if politics were some kind of outré hobby that could be not be indulged in a commander-in-chief.
Not so with Trump. Why? In a word, because they know people will watch it. Because Trump is good for ratings, good for digital subscriptions, good for analytics and “engagement” and the thousand other absurd tools by which we measure the degree to which our attention spans are being shortened. Trump is popular. Trump sells.
No one understands this better than Trump himself, which is why he knew he would get exactly what he wanted from the network suits. He even went out of his way to pick the day after the college football national championship — even this winner knows better than to get in the middle of a contest between two of the winningest winners these days.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
What's more, Trump understood intuitively that the television executives had no choice. If the networks accede to his demands, he wins because he gets to prattle on about steel and glass and being "see-through" and the ontological difference between walls and fences, between corrals, palisades, enclosures, paddocks, pounds, espaliers, moats, dikes, ditches, barriers, barricades, circumvallations, dingles, doors, and hatches. If they don't, they are "fake news" and "the Enemy of the People" and perhaps some new made-to-order epithet.
Only one thing can come out of Tuesday night: increased support for Trump's wall. People who oppose it made up their minds long ago. Ditto Trumpist diehards, who insist that its imminent construction is the only thing standing between them and a horde of 700,000 plague-ridden ISIS terrorists, half of them pregnant. But between these two are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of moderate Trump-supporting Americans freshly returned from their Christmas vacations — or from working the New Year's Day shift at a convenience store — who have not been paying attention to the news. They have some vague idea that the government is shut down, but because they are not federal employees or contractors they are not palpably affected by it. The president will speak to them in his best parody of measured concern and explain that Democrats are pointlessly obstructing the will of the people and hurting decent hard-working government workers in the process, all in the name of undermining national security at the behest of their globalist paymasters. It will be a carnival of nonsense with an audience of millions. It will change hearts and minds. It will be endlessly fact-checked and denounced and fretted over — all irrelevantly.
If the press really believed all of its gas about principles and honesty and democracy dying in the darkness, they would beg the suits to proceed with their previously scheduled lineup of NCIS: Anchorage and The Real Housewives of Fond du Lac. They would quietly invent an excuse for not giving the president free airtime, perhaps the same one they used with Obama about "politics." If Trump responded by calling them traitors or terrorists or making jokes about their appearance, they would ignore him. Instead they will let him speak about his tinker-toy fantasies for 20 minutes. This relationship is symbiotic. It is also pathetic.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Matthew Walther is a national correspondent at The Week. His work has also appeared in First Things, The Spectator of London, The Catholic Herald, National Review, and other publications. He is currently writing a biography of the Rev. Montague Summers. He is also a Robert Novak Journalism Fellow.
-
Liz Truss to save the West: is a political comeback really on the cards?
Talking Point The former prime minister is back with a new tell-all memoir
By Richard Windsor, The Week UK Published
-
Fallout: one of the 'most faithful – and best – video game adaptations'
The Week Recommends This 'genre-bending' new Amazon series is set in a post-apocalyptic wilderness where survivors shelter below ground
By Adrienne Wyper, The Week UK Published
-
'Test of faith for Trump Media's investors'
Today's Newspapers A roundup of the headlines from the US front pages
By The Week Staff Published
-
Arizona court reinstates 1864 abortion ban
Speed Read The law makes all abortions illegal in the state except to save the mother's life
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
Trump, billions richer, is selling Bibles
Speed Read The former president is hawking a $60 "God Bless the USA Bible"
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
The debate about Biden's age and mental fitness
In Depth Some critics argue Biden is too old to run again. Does the argument have merit?
By Grayson Quay Published
-
How would a second Trump presidency affect Britain?
Today's Big Question Re-election of Republican frontrunner could threaten UK security, warns former head of secret service
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Published
-
'Rwanda plan is less a deterrent and more a bluff'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By The Week UK Published
-
Henry Kissinger dies aged 100: a complicated legacy?
Talking Point Top US diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize winner remembered as both foreign policy genius and war criminal
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Last updated
-
Trump’s rhetoric: a shift to 'straight-up Nazi talk'
Why everyone's talking about Would-be president's sinister language is backed by an incendiary policy agenda, say commentators
By The Week UK Published
-
More covfefe: is the world ready for a second Donald Trump presidency?
Today's Big Question Republican's re-election would be a 'nightmare' scenario for Europe, Ukraine and the West
By Sorcha Bradley, The Week UK Published