This article originally appeared in our Elevenses newsletter.
Political commentators have been falling over themselves in the week preceding Donald Trump’s historic election win to explain how a candidate facing 34 convictions and a slew of historic sexual allegations was afforded such a comfortable win. Trump managed to increase his vote share in 90 per cent of US counties and became just the second Republican since 1988 to win the popular vote. Most put it down to the failings of the Democrats, but few have considered the prospect that the contest was over before the election had even begun.
Trump had one thing on his side that Kamala Harris and the Democrats were starved of – the oxygen of attention. Writing in The Conversation, professor Timothy Graham from the Queensland University of Technology found that the president-elect, amplified by Elon Musk, was able to “bombard” audiences, journalists and other key stakeholders with a constant supply of allegations, rumours, conspiracy theories and unverifiable claims which helped distract people from what his opponents are saying. As one person put it after the result had become clear, who would have thought “They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” would prove to be a more effective message than “Let me help you buy your first house”? But because we were talking about that and not talking about what the Democrats were saying, the communication battle had been won.
I bring this up because it’s a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly familiar on this side of the pond, too. Figures like Nigel Farage have become like crack cocaine to the mainstream media, who seem happy to gobble up whatever preposterous thing he says one day and spit it out as a national talking point the next. A case in point is the notion that he might take on some sort of ambassadorial role in the United States to help “smooth relations” between members of the Labour Party, who have been frosty towards Trump in the past. It will never happen, of course, but because ITV covered it on Good Morning Britain and every national newspaper in the country wanted to tell their readers about it, Farage achieved the only thing he has ever set out to do, which is to make himself appear more relevant than he actually is.
It’s an almost identical strategy to the one Trump has deployed for decades. Where one had The Apprentice, the other had I’m a Celebrity. Where Trump had Fox, Farage had GB News. And in both cases, they stole a grip on the national narrative to the detriment of the other side, who were too busy trying to control the message to realise that the audience was no longer listening.
If the progressive left is to learn anything from the US election, let it be that.
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