Stage and Political Spheres

To examine sociological analysis I would like to go back to the discussion that took place around the final presentation. In regards to President Trump the discussion surrounded the issue of stages and the means by which celebrities can, and must, market both their image and their reality to consumers. As a political candidate who's popularity disseminates from an almost cult of personality-like relationship with his supporters the issue of marketing was never a far off concern for candidate Trump. What he offered to his supporters was the chance to vote for an outsider, a person "just like them." In finding ideological similarities with his campaign supporters felt as though they gained a direct link to the presidency and the government. This link, this backstage pass-holder feeling, was emphasized by candidate Trump's constant Tweets and has been no less significant now that he has taken office. What I find unique about this situation is that rather than marketing his backstage life President Donald Trump is marketing backstage politics in the hope that people who feel left out up to this point will relate with and support him. This practice, while effective in gaining support and causing people to relate is, in my opinion, exceptionally bad for the political process; in the process of attempting to open the political process to more people political concerns become necessarily less potent, reason is lost in the name of ideological justification.
The current discussion of fake news is perfectly representative of the issues of framing mixed with the desire of the consumer to shift spheres. First, what is meant by the desire to shift spheres? Political discussions place us in different spheres in so far as different groups are able to access and discuss different issues in different ways. Some spheres of discussion, such as technical firms, lawmakers and elected/appointed offices, have barriers to entry, which prevent the public from entering the discussion. Other spheres allow for and even encourage public and open displays of opinion, which should, and to a certain extent must, be accessible to as many people as possible. What’s the issue? Placing politics in a technical sphere, such as the need to be elected to have a say in the construction of policy, limits the ability of many who are subject to those policies to have a say in their creation. (As a side note I accept that voting is an option but at this point the claim that voting gives you an equal say is almost as absurd and politically suicidal a position to take as the Gateway drug theory or trickle-down economics, so I won’t bother). The manner in which Donald Trump played the idea of the front stage and back stage issues is, I believe, perfectly representative of the desire of many to see politics move into the public sphere where they are not limited in their access and understanding of those politics. Donald Trump presented people an opportunity to engage with politics as back stage, as a real thing, as a public sphere. While this was incredibly popular it lead to extreme damage to our understanding of politics and our consumption of news, that is the major conflict today.
I was going to do a lot of work to try to prove these issues though some sort of sweeping examination of political prudence over the last 20 years but instead I will turn to the simple idea of junk politics. As much as I enjoy the technical issues being accessed by the public I also recognize that the public does not understand technical issues, sort of the point of a technocratic politician. There are two perceivable impacts from the mixing of political spheres in the context of Donald Trump marketing the back stage of his political journey: 1) Fundamental damage to our understanding of the issues and 2) Culmination in the election of a president who is fundamentally incapable of the work of technocracy and is only now starting to realize that political issues are technical regardless of whether we want them to be. The damage to our understanding of the issues is not only linked to President Trump but he is representative of the culmination of this failure to understand. Everything from the 24-hour news cycle and the way it must limit and gate-keep issues to the profit driven need to emphasize violence to gain attention display a system in which news has become more like entertainment. In that line news agencies must frame their issues in a way that people will pay attention; the unique thing about our new president is that he does that too. From the oversimplification of globalization that he used to paint China as a target to his simple idea of “just negotiating” with Kim Jong-Un, Donald Trump has simultaneously brought political issues into the public sphere while turning them into garbage that we consume while thinking that we are an informed citizen. I hate the reality that we live in where stupidity and ideological simplicity are considered to be informed citizenship but I want to use the last example of Kim Jong-Un to represent the real problem here. Not only do we consume political trash but we have, excuse me our new executive has, begun to practice politics like they are garbage. Donald Trump’s oh so brilliant plan to negotiate with Kim Jong-Un sounds good to a simpleton who believes that governments should be run like a business (i.e. Negotiate when you have the stronger hand). To a person who actually understands political technicalities, however, negotiation is, in and of itself, a bargaining chip to be given and withheld as a tool of diplomacy to discourage behavior. Essentially, my point is politics are complex and despite the fact that we might like more access to the ‘band’ we will probably not know what to do once we actually get there.