Biden vs. Trump Debate & The Economy of Fear
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- čas přidán 28. 06. 2024
- We recap the Trump-Biden debate and then discuss the politics and economy of fear. Sources include Armageddon, Strauss, Hegel, and Durkheim.
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being afraid is fun. everyone is doing it.
That debate gave me The Fear.
From Bill Clinton's '93 first inaugural address: "There is no longer division between what is foreign and what is domestic; the world economy, the world environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race;"
So now we have the "world presidential election".
I've been reading Paul Virilio lately, so I'll quote from 'The Information Bomb' directly:
"So the team which trained Clinton for the last election got him to speak as fast as possible. Obeying strict television rules, he had to be able to say everything on a particular theme in less than ninety seconds - before going on to say nothing at all about it after he was elected." This line sort of captures what Victor brings up about presidential talking points/rhetoric.
Virilio also, incidentally, spends a few paragraphs on the factor of presidential physical appearance, calling them "political supermodels":
"Bill Clinton was first elected because he looked like Kennedy and because Hillary, his wife, was believed to have undergone various forms of plastic surgery. The popular media then set about their only daughter, a pleasant adolescent of thirteen but not exacdy prepossessing. She had to modify her appearance to enable her father to win victory in the presidential election of 1996."
"But if you step out of line, you lose your place. New political mutants have recendy appeared on our screens, [...] Apart from a visually correct physical appearance, these characters have understood that in a rapidly globalizing world there is no longer, strictly speaking, either Right or Left, and that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, these things literally no longer have any meaning. All that remains is the great audiovisual dilemma, the conflict between the soft (the word) and the hard (the image). Unlike the general run of the representatives of the old parties which are collapsing all around, these new political supermodels will speak a language which is 'hard' and impactful."
Virilio speaks of "soap opera"/"supermodel" presidents, who no longer address the nation, but "go with the general
flow of the silent revolution of the audiovisual world". Trump, perhaps more than any other president, has weaponised and accelerated the political media machine. Maybe the 'ritual' was finally beaten into the ground by Trump, but more than anything, he's "advanced" the supremacy of the image and totally locked into the audiovisual world, which has been the hidden 3rd actor and engine of elections.
Can't say I wanted Biden before the debate, but unfortunately his cabinet is still the only way to not fall into crazy far-right authoritarianism. Would love to see him drop out and put in another Democrat though because it'd be more likely to keep the country out of turmoil.
A great example of some optical boo boo possibly swinging an election is Ed Miliband and the infamous bacon sandwich in the UK.
im sorry to take a boring marxist-ish possition here but regarding this "how can fear be bought and sold" question, surely the mechanism at work is taking people's economic fears, fear of losing your job, fear of becoming homeless, etc and redirect that fear towards whatever is profitable for the donors of the respective political parties?
57:00 Hope this is still true in US.
von Mises is not neo-liberal, he is austrian school of economics and even though his ideas are more Leise-Faire its still not Milton Friedman.
People Planet Peace Jill Stein 2024
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