Lesson for progressives: Understand what worked to elect Donald Trump.
Breitbart.com combines clickbait and stories of resentment to create a media powerhouse. Take a close look at the site. A lot of people do, daily.
Clickbait are website headlines and articles that are so irresistible that one cannot help but click on them. It like junk food or salted nuts at a bar.
This blog looks at political messaging. It warned Democrats and progressives that Trump understood the media environment much better than did other Republicans or did Hillary Clinton.
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| Breitbart.com has branded merchandise |
One element of political messaging is making oneself newsworthy. Trump was more interesting than Hillary Clinton. I watched back to back Hillary and Trump events in New Hampshire and can testify to it.
Another is getting favorable news stories read. The website breitbart.com is important. Note that I am not saying it is good, nor is it healthy, nor will it inform in a way that is objective, but it is important because:
1. It is the semi-official mouthpiece for Trump view of the world.
2. It is very good at presenting stories that get read, so it is a good place to learn about clickbait and resentment.
Their website is chock full of sponsored clickbait. Some of its elements are:
1. the promise of spectacular surprise if one clicks.
2. a hidden mystery revealed.
3. sexy photo.
4. a celebrity exposed.
The clickbait then brings the reader to a site one navigates slowly by advancing through a blizzard of ads to locate the "next" button. A common feature of the clickbait is to note that something very special is located deep within the site, so one must keep clicking to get to it. This is what clickbait looks like in its classic form. These "stories" were all contained in this morning's Breitbart.com.
And there is resentment.
The political news articles in Breitbart have a similar characteristic of sensational appeal to something the reader already feels: some sense of moral wrong or injustice. The stories have a common theme of resentment at the disrespect being given your opinions and values. Look at how insulting and dismissive those people are of us. Look how they mock us. Get angry.
Story after story feeds the big theme: that the people reading Breitbart are treated with contempt by the educated secular Democratic college-town elites. The stories above were taken from today's Breitbart. One does not need to hunt and edit to find this. This theme of resentment of a snub was not reserved for the campaign. It is a perennial and relentless feature.
Democrats and progressives can learn from this. The story of resentment was not simply a passing moment of campaign partisanship. A great many people feel it deeply and they want that feeling fed and fed some more.
The next Democratic leader needs to be able to interrupt that meme. The current crop of Democratic stars have the aura of Ivy League/Stanford/urban centers: Cory Booker and Joseph Kennedy the rising stars are Charles Schemer and Elizabeth Warren the current establishment leadership. They have Harvard written all over themselves. Bernie's rumpled suits, wild hair, and deep Brooklyn accent are assets for him.
Trump was an unlikely spokesperson for the common man, but because he was conspicuously rich and vulgar about bragging about it he was able to present himself as angry with the snobs rather than jealous of the snobs.
Democrats and progressives are currently asking themselves: How in the world did people vote for Trump? What were they thinking? They need to read Breitbart often enough to learn.
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