You can tell when the voting was closed on election night or when four days later Joseph R. You could say that the Electoral College ledge voted to elect Mr. Biden as president on Monday, or it will end when Mr. Biden is sworn in on January 20th.
But by one step, Trump’s presidency ended in mid-November, when online money launderers began to support a Harry-style image in a dress.
A photo of the British singer on the cover of the December Vogue asks YouTube personality Case Nadens Owens To tweet, “Bring back the manly men.” Ben Shapiro, The photoshoot was an attack on the very notion of masculinity: “Anyone who pretends not to have a referendum on masculinity to dress fluffy for men treats you like a complete idiot.”
What does all this have to do with the President’s imminent exit? First, it suggests that other money launderers are taking on the role of troll-warrior-in-chief that Mr. Trump gave himself.
But it’s a reminder that the kind of button-pushing cultural politics that predicted him – in many ways helping President Trump make it possible – will keep him in office.
‘Duck Dynasty’ politics
One million years ago in the Obama era, proxy wars over culture were handled on social media and right-wing talk, on the periphery of Rs. It was an era of gamergate attacks on feminists in the video gaming community, over Coca-Cola commercial foreign language songs and the female-cast reboot of “Ghostbusters.”
With President Trump’s election, a pop-culture itself that explained the connection between cultural prayer and political tribe (the same year he announced his campaign he made the “Ghostbusters” outrage video), a political and cultural-war of Rs. Merge the wings
For four years, we had a president whose portfolio of concerns included protests over NFL games, speeches at TV awards ceremonies, loyalty to Fox News, and a reboot of “Rosen.” He scoffed at Nielsen Ratings and provoked it – in his own and shown programs he saw as allies and enemies – with the intensity that a wartime president could be devoted to the movement of the army.
Now, with Mr. Trump committing suicide with ONN and Newsmax and tweeting an extended scientific serial that stole elections from them, that war order is returning to the field from the White House.
For decades, the expression of politics through the culture war has been a major part of the media. Andrew Bretbart, a right-wing online publisher, declares that “politics comes down to culture” (borrowing from Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci). Fox News produced the annual “War on Christmas” (with occasional spinoffs such as “Santa Claus and Jesus is White”).
The appeal was emotional; People have personal connections to family holidays and their favorite shows and, they say, do not use the marginal tax-rate policy. But, it was also a way to appeal to a specific audience in a country where, increasingly, people did not have different political beliefs, but had full cultural experiences.
In the early 1970s, the “rural purge” on TV – which removed bucolic sitcoms such as “Green Acres” to make room for citizens like “All the Family” – the family – reinforced the idea that there were different America’s, and Competitive, popular cultures. This dynamic spread only from cable TV and the internet, which cut us into a nation of exclusive masses, shared geography but occupied various mental spaces.
Such as historians Kevin M. Cruz and Julian E. Zylizer writes in “Fault Lines”, his study of American polarization since the 1970s, all of which “is a less-than-normal world based on what people have heard or seen.” This was true in politics and entertainment and the two often overlapped.
Now there was a recognizable red and blue pop culture. A study by the Times of 2001 found a TV split that mirrors the rural-urban divide in elections. The reality show “Deadliest Catch” about catching Alaskan crabs was popular in red America; In the Blue Zone, “Orange is the New Black,” Netflix drama and criticism of the prison system.
A 2014 poll found that 53 percent of Democrats believe that “twelve years as a slave” should win the best Oscar, compared to 15 percent of Republicans. Neither party took place on the movie; In the way that the Iraq war movie “American Sniper” became a favorite and generous target, the Civil War was handled only enough for people to understand where they would land.
Knowingly or not, the members of the audience entered the culture war as volunteers. Especially for conservative people, Hollywood’s liberal leanings were a useful font to the complaint, so that no matter how much political and judicial power they have, they will be cultural victims.
And people increasingly saw their favorite stars as their proxies and champions. Phil Robertson, the bio-patriarch of the “Duck Dynasty”, was briefly suspended from a reality show in 2013 for his hollow phobic and racist remarks when an American saw a beloved star as a political purity to speak his mind. Another America – if they had ever heard of the “duck race” – saw a fanatic see what was coming his way.
Culture-troll-in-chief
All of this, in retrospect, was a pre-arrival “The Apprentice” Trump-era trailer.
Politicians, especially on the right, have been embroiled in a culture war before: George HW Bush v. “The Simpsons,” Dan Kyle vs. Murphy Brown, “Bob Dolly v. Rep. But his awe was thought to be awkward, deaf-mute and, often not, self-defeating.
But Mr. Trump, the child of TV, who made himself a TV character as an adult, understood the media instinctively. He stayed there, ever since he gave up his youthful fantasies of running a movie studio, vowed to “put in the show business in real estate” and faked his tabloid in the 1980s.
After using the media to build a reality-show career and experiencing the rush of business-success legend, primetime celebrity, he knew that culture creates a kind of gut connection that only politicians can dream of. Ordinary politics argues: it does not believe what other people believe. The politics of culture-war argues: those other people don’t like what you like.
So Mr. Trump’s campaign, as much as it was about building a wall or Islamophobia or “law and order”, was also about a promise to protect and support the culture of his followers over the enemy. His rallies combined with a concert vibe with the theatrics of Pro Wrestling (another genre was an experience with Mr. Trump).
Over the years it has been said that showbiz celebrities despise their values, here it is. Their Celebrities, a Real Celebrities from TV, taking his side. Patrick J. Buchanan, co-host of CNN’s “Crossfire,” which has declared a “cultural war” for the “soul of the soul,” has since hailed the former NBC host as “the first true cultural candidate for president.” America ”at the 1992 Republican National Convention.
Trump’s 2016 RNC He didn’t have many high-profile politicians, but he did have a “Duck Dynasty” star. As president, he took pride in inviting Kid Rock and Ted Nugent (who once called President Obama a “subhuman mangrel”), as well as the new connoisseur-curious Kanye West to take photos at overseas fees.
The pictures felt like the spoils of war, the dance of the political final zone. And his insolent celebrity critics often played into his-v-Hollywood narrative, cursing him at Tony Awards or quarreling with him on Twitter.
He called Western culture the best because “we write symphony,” he said, whistling to the white-nationalist dog from the orchestra pit. And he threw himself wholeheartedly into fights like ABC’s reboot “Rosen”, whose star, Rosen Barr, became a real-life, vituperative Twitter Trumpist, and who worked his politics into the story line.
He saw culture as a way to find common ground, unlike previous presidents, such as attending the Kennedy Center in honor or sharing something spotify playlists for everyone. He saw it as a battlefield of winners and losers, and full of opportunities to ignite divisions.
When “Rosen” dominated the Premier ratings, his team boomed about him as he harassed the enemy. “It’s about us!” He told a crowd of supporters.
Later, when ABC fired Mr. Barrow from the rapist over a racist tweet, Mr. Trump joined the argument, not to condemn Mrs. Barr’s remarks, but to blame the hate network, because of “reckless statements and said about me on ABC. It echoed Her Twitter attack On the network in 2014 when he created the sitcom “Black-Ish”: “Can you imagine the loudness of the show ‘Whitish’! Racism at a high level?”
His belching against Hollywood was not just a distraction from the bread and circus. It was a political message. Blake echoed the right-wing fix on “Cancel Culture” by withdrawing the issue of Mr. Barr’s firing – for comparing former Obama aide to a mockery. Message: Your stars are being canceled. Your show is being canceled. You Canceling. Only I am a network executive who can confirm your renewal.
His fixation on ratings (“The Apprentice,” whose ratings he regularly lies to), is shaken by his worldview of competition and score keeping. Fights by Mr. Trump’s campaign and supporters, especially about the deceptive language of “change”, the introduction of American identity, and the boundaries of acceptable speech aligned with more clearly and uglyly articulated messages.
“Now they’re just making‘ ghostbusters ’with women. What’s going on! There was a way to tell men that it would prevent them from becoming redundant. “We can say ‘Merry Christmas’ again” was the way to say: Your culture would be the default default in America, and I’m going to bring it back. The enemy wants to turn you into a supporting player; I’m going to make you a star again.
The tug-of-war is on
Much of this was a reaction to the expansion of the American story, suggested by the election of America’s first black president and by the pop culture of Obama-era representatives such as “Black-ish” and “Hamilton.” Mostly, there is a sense of a new cultural age (at least in the East) beginning with the new presidential administration: JFK, New Frontier and youth culture; Reagan, “Family Relationships” and “Greed is Good.”
Although the Biden administration is yet to begin, it does not seem like that kind of fixed migration at the moment, not only that, in the constant tug of war the flag moves to the other side of the centerline. Things can calm down on the surface; Mr. Biden is not such a big man in pop culture that he is an enthusiastic culture warrior who has taken over the presidency.
But as each hurricane on the Vogue cover proves to be, the fight continues. Sections are too deep, incentives to make them too big. Whether or not a large part of this continues after Mr. Trump leaves office, or whether his ratings rattles only resonate in some of the poorest corners of the Internet, will continue the story he continues to tell us.
The secret to a long-running show is that it can survive cast change.
