Contrasting Obama and Trump in a media world

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

I’m over 5,000 kilometres away this week, in the US with a television crew to visit the White House and also the Republican National Convention in Cleveland Ohio.

We are shooting a documentary ‘as Gaeilge’ for RTÉ on how TV has changed politics and how politics has changed TV.

This week we are looking at two politicians who are masters of the medium of television – and indeed of social media – in very different ways.

President Barack Obama is a natural performer. We were in the White House on Monday to see him present a medal of honour to a Vietnam veteran.

He delivered a scripted speech as he always does, with a seamless and fluent delivery. His off-the-cuff asides and witticisms were the making of the speech – and they made him so compelling.

Obama captured the unharnessed zeitgeist of the younger generation in 2008. It wasn’t just his mesmeric speech making. He was able to reach out to the untapped voters on their own terms, using their language, appropriating their forms of communication (Facebook and twitter primarily).

The vehicle is no longer in gleaming showroom condition. A fair few dents and scratches have been gathered over the past eight years. But boy, does that engine still purr smoothly when it gets going.

From the time Nixon’s drops of perspiration were visible in the 1960 Presidential debate against John F Kennedy, the power of television to influence the world of politics was evident.

Obama is a natural and he has shown that with appearances on late night chat shows such as Jimmy Fallon and Jon Steward, plus doing a turn on comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s ‘Celebrities in Cars’ series.

And then there’s Donald Trump. The more the campaign has gone on, the more he has pumped up the volume. Let’s build a wall to keep out Mexicans. Let’s ban all Muslims. Many immigrants are rapists.

But Trump is another American who is stellar on television. His personality and ego are as big as the continent. In a way, he is an American version of Boris – motivated first, foremost and last by his own legend. It’s all about him.

He has become the voice of American republicanism because he is a TV A-lister and he has pandered to the more extreme views (especially on immigration) that have taken hold in the US, as they have in most of Europe.

They thought he would tone it down when he became the presumptive Republican candidate but it hasn’t.

Look at this tweet on Hillary Clinton whom he keeps on branding as Crooked Hillary in the most provocative way.

“Fox News is much better, and far more truthful, than CNN, which is all negative. Guests are stacked for Crooked Hillary! I don’t watch.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.