The Problem is the Presentation
There's a hard truth about America, our media, and our politics that needs to be learned
For more on the ideas and history presented in this article, check out my book THE MIDNIGHT KINGDOM: A HISTORY OF POWER, PARANOIA, AND THE COMING CRISIS.
I’m just going to lay my cards on the table right here at the start: I could not be more sick of our media’s coverage of the new Speaker of the House Mike Johnson.
Following a miserable circus that showcased how effectively the wealthy have undermined our representative government, the Louisiana representative ascended out of nowhere to the highest post in the House and, since then, we’ve been treated to some of the worst written sponge-baths you’re ever going to see.
The Washington Post has gone above and beyond in its coverage. It began with a new chapter in the “go-out-and-see-what-regular-folks-think” series: “House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Louisiana Hometown Guided By Faith and Family.” These articles are always absurd and only highlight how incredibly out of touch our major media publications are with the world “out there” beyond the major metropolitan hubs. Inevitably, they give confusing, insulting, and unrepresentative glimpses at a part of the country they are absolutely doomed to misunderstand.
I went over it in the most recent episode of The Muckrake Podcast, but suffice to say, it was a horror show of an article that laundered Christian Nationalism and attempted to paint Johnson, his family, and his party as something other than extremists who have tirelessly attacked the rights and liberties of vulnerable populations while also attempting to overthrow the government of the United States of America.
Well, apparently that trash article wasn’t enough.
Ah, great. Well done. Well, well done.
That’s right. It wasn’t enough to give Johnson the hometown treatment, now the official start of the narrative is that this “quiet” politician is already being turned into a “boogeyman” by a party desperate to score political points.
Sure. This guy who has already on several occasions linked the overturning of Roe V. Wade with the need for laborers. Who attempted to overthrow an election. Who has attacked one oppressed group after another. Who has, continually, and unabashedly, publicly stated that God the almighty has put him in a position of power.
The Post has done us a favor here. Often we are treated to these articles, these opinion pieces, that communicate something to us that we are quick to ignore. In some cases, we see the content and rage against it online. “What are you doing, Times?” “Post, seriously?!” As if these sites and newspapers and even cable news networks are making some kind of mistake. As if they didn’t think it through enough. As if they don’t understand they’re betraying a team somehow.
The rise of Johnson is a moment to pause and understand something deeper: our media, our politicians, and our culture, do not work the way we have been told.
For years now, with Donald Trump’s campaign and then presidency and post-presidency, we have been told over and over again there’s The Right and then there’s “the Left.” The former obviously is comprised of the GOP and their assortment of aggrievement-based and power-obsessed groups and individuals. And, this is mostly correct. Throw in the wealth class that funds and directs the aforementioned members and you’ve largely got a decent idea of who and what The Right entails.
As chronicled last year in the article “The Myth of the Left,” our ideas of what constitutes that group or persuasion is so far off base it’s almost laughable. Publications like The Post and The Times are liberal, for sure, insomuch as they advocate for liberalism as a reality, but that doesn’t mean they are leftist. They, along with all cable news and almost every possible platform, are corporate in nature, and their positions and coverage originate from that perspective in ways that can sometimes align with what readers or viewers believe while also featuring moments like this that highlight the larger ideological rift.
It needs to be said, before we move forward or dive deeper, that this mainstreaming of Michael Johnson is indicative of this rift. And it’s not a coincidence that the same places that have excoriated Donald Trump in the past are more than happy to shine a kind and beneficial light on people like Johnson, especially when they are “low profile” or “quiet.”
And that’s because, as we’ll discuss at length, for a lot of these reporters, personalities, commentators, and politicians, their problem was never with Donald Trump’s policies, his attacks on democracy, or his cruelty.
No.
The problem was always the presentation. The packaging and communication.
Deep down, those abuses were always fine. Because they have always been fine.