What Putin learned from tfg’s corrupt administration and on-going public presence/influence as not officially anything but a private citizen, and as demonstrably factual information continues to expand, is that PR produces clicks . . . a/k/a attention.
Absent attention in the national (read world) dialogue, you’re nowhere. This trend does nothing but grow, especially if you use the internet for information. On that platform, and especially on social media, which exists only to sell advertising, whoever shouts loudest and latest gets noticed.
Politics has become mostly a war of words, delivered electronically to billions, minute by minute, day by day.
Whatever happened co content???
Yesterday I heard a commentator on “Democracy Now” state that Putin’s primary objective was to get noticed. He realizes that Russia, once a world power, has become just another country (whose economy is half the size of California’s). Putin dreams of returning Russia to its world power status. All he has is lots of military. So his approach to realizing his dream is sabre-rattling. It costs him nothing to put his troops and tanks, etc. on alert and to surround poor countries who rightly are frightened by looking at their boarders and seeing Russian troops. The media, always needing to sell more soap, are co-operating by headlining OMG stories about Putin.
Tfg needs to remain important to sustain his influence among the ignorant swath of America who formally self-identified as overlooked and therefore non-existent but who are now enjoying daily headlines, thanks to a click-hungry American media.
Putin noticed. All he is doing is emulating tfg. And it’s working.
Getting noticed is the aim of all advertising. (No less an iconic player than the Beatles, back in the 60s, ultimately became the biggest social phenomenon of the 21st century to the extent that rock ’n’ roll became defined by “before-Beatles” and “after-Beatles” dialogues in social discussions and hence an ad man’s dream).
Advertising success has a formula. Number one in that formula is product positioning. It has become so prevalent as to the positioning of every product in the public’s eye that NO ONE with any kind of product (read brand) will attempt to sell it without advertising being involved. This is nothing new: American ad men wrote the book on advertising (see, Ogilvie, David, et al.).
This is what enabled tfg to become a brand with absolutely no product . . . ultimately resulting in his ability to become prez of the U.S., fer God’s sake. Putin noticed. Ultimate result: Politics, having become geopolitics, as well as soap, and everything else under the sun, will not be seen to exist without a shill to sell it.
President Herbert Hoover famously announced, “The business of America is business.” No longer — The business of America is advertising.
(Several years ago, I spent a hundred bucks to take Kos up on his one-time offer for a life-time ad free subscription. I’ve never regretted it.)
My favorite one-word definition of advertising is “bullshit.”
So? . . . you say . . .
I say: (thanks to the internet) The business of America is bullshit.
Once upon a time,the business of America was Democracy. (See, Declaration of Indepence; U.S. Constitution.)
Let’s cut to the chase: Up to the minute score: Bullshit 1; Democracy, 0.
Congratulations, USA!
Sorry, Democracy . . .