How personality trumped policy in this media election cycle

How personality trumped policy in this media election cycle toggle caption Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Looking at the media coverage leading to and throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s massive electoral success Tuesday, I wonder if we are seeing — at least a little bit — the impact of politics rendered as entertainment and spectacle. “It’s a policy versus personality conversation that voters are having with themselves.” Williams’ election special itself seemed to reflect the turn toward spectacle, conducted from a studio set in Los Angeles with huge screens to display sweeping graphics, deploying the kind of technology used to film TV shows like Disney+’s The Mandalorian. But that dynamic quickly changed again, as talk turned to the outrageousness of Trump’s actions — from using expletives to refer to Harris in speeches to presenting a rally in New York City featuring a comic who joked about Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage.” It seemed an extension of an ethic Trump developed long ago: That being talked about in the press is always better than not being talked about, even if people are mostly saying he’s terrible. But Trump’s ability to leverage media attention as entertainment seems more unique to him — something that legendarily awkward figures like JD Vance and Ron DeSantis might have trouble re-creating, raising questions about how lasting the impact may be.