The Implications of Macro versus Micro.

The Implications of Macro versus Micro.  I take comfort in the fact that, at least in my own mind, I am everyman.  While it is true that my personal philosophy tends to old-school and conservative beliefs; there are many, many times when I cross over the political line and take a stance on an issue that can be considered  moderate and on rare occasions, somewhat liberal.  I think that my unremarkable life is a good example of what many Americans experience in their own spheres of existence.  This particular blog reflects that assumption.

At some point in the last few years, our society has changed its attitude towards current events, the media, and most things political.   Meanwhile, the mainstream media has taken on an attitude of micro coverage when a President’s policies do not align with their own liberal philosophies.  More specifically, they parse every action or phrase and every policy or initiative in an effort to find any possible error in fact or theory.  Oftentimes, in lieu of factual errors, they cast a shadow upon their subject by simply presenting a side of the story that suits their agenda.  As Orwell famously said: Propaganda is as much a matter of what is left out, as of what is actually said.  They might report a true story; it just isn’t the entire story.  This micro coverage has been most apparent when we have as subjects Republican Presidents or conservative representatives.  In other words, the media representations of “the news” are colored by their personal beliefs.  However, when we have a President that apparently holds the same political philosophy as the mainstream media (i.e. Democrat; more specifically Obama), we see that the media coverage takes a macro approach.  They focus on the bigger, broader, longer range perspective of the action or phrase and, in turn, forgive the occasional misrepresentation or outright distortion of the facts.  They are much more forgiving.  The obvious problem with this media approach is not in the selection of style they choose to employ, micro versus macro; both are legitimate approaches to news coverage.  The problem is in their selectivity of application and the arbitrary nature of how they decide when and where to apply a certain style.  Through this selectivity process, they have exposed their bias and compromised their journalistic integrity.  They have forfeited much, if not most, of the respect that most citizens once held for the media community.  While the public still holds a high regard and loyalty to the necessity of a free press in our society; they have pretty much lost all respect and confidence in the free press we currently have.  

This loss of trust in the media has led the public to adopt a macro approach to the world.  Rather than being manipulated and controlled by the daily headline or the 24-hour news cycle, the American voter now considers a broader and longer picture of events.  Aided by the internet and cable/satellite television, most informed citizens now consider multiple sources and tend to form their judgments over a period of days or weeks, as opposed to minutes or hours.  They have become more sophisticated in their ability to detect bullshit and they are no longer simply pliable victims of a biased mainstream media.

The Trump Administration seems to understand this; but I cannot imagine a more difficult job than that held by Sean Spicer.  President Trump goes around throwing rhetorical bombs and Spicer is left with the chore of coming in to clean up the damage; but here is what I find most amusing.  A pattern seems to be developing where Trump will toss out a particular bomb that will have a flaw or two in a micro sense.  Parts of his statements or tweets are simply wrong.  The media leap upon those flaws with glee and unbound enthusiasm.  As they are wont to do, they overreach and happily go over the top when they find a narrative in which they perceive an opening.  They cannot see the forest (macro) for the trees (micro).  But as we are beginning to realize, many of Trump’s bombs that have micro flaws are quite correct and spot on when we consider them in a macro sense.  At some point, either the press will learn to restrain themselves when micro errors are exposed and wait for the macro picture to accurately unfold or they will continue to be the infantile puppets that are continually having their strings pulled by an amused Trump Administration.  As the old saying goes…If you can’t identify the mark at the poker table, the mark is you.  The mainstream media apparently does not realize it yet as they flounder about to ensnare the Trump Presidency in micro errors, but right now…the mark is them.  What we might be seeing is President Trump’s willingness to lose a micro battle in order win a macro war.  That is pretty shrewd strategy and it will be quite interesting to see how it develops.  Some examples of micro versus micro follow.

Conway and Spicer have been roundly ridiculed in media circles for their phrase alternative facts.  In a micro sense, there is no such thing as alternative facts.  A fact, by its definition, is a single version of a truth.  However, the facts you choose to employ in your argument or presentation makes all the difference in the world.  It is natural that we each choose the selected facts that support our personal beliefs.  Therefore, in the macro sense, there are certainly alternative facts; a different set of facts that another person might choose to present a different version of an event or a position.  The public gets this.  But the press still believes they are the masters of information and can manipulate public sentiment by juxtapositioning their use of micro and macro news coverage. 

Trump pops off about his inaugural crowd size.  His ego pushes him to state that his WDC crowd was as big as or bigger than Obama’s (size does matter…at least to Trump).  The reality is that WDC and the surrounding multi-state region is overwhelmingly Democratic and common sense tells you that it is far easier to gather a crowd from a short distance than from a long distance.  When we couple that with the fact that Obama was the first black President and it was an historical marker that we all celebrated as a nation, it should not be surprising that Obama’s crowd was larger…on the ground…in a micro sense.  However, the overall attendance of Trump’s inauguration, including television/radio/internet, was undoubtedly larger than Obama’s.  Many Americans, like my wife and me, eschewed an expensive trip to WDC by plane or train or car; bypassed the aggravation of dealing with troublesome and perhaps threatening protesters; and saved ourselves the unreasonable expense of accommodations in the WDC area.  We simply watched the inauguration in our sunroom with a cup of coffee.  Point being: in a macro sense, Trump’s crowd was larger.

There will be a Supreme Court nomination next week.  In a micro sense, it will be highly contentious and controversial.  Some are predicting nothing short of world war between conservatives and liberals in Congress when the confirmation process begins in earnest.  However, if we look at this particular nomination in a macro sense, it is entirely likely that the sound and fury will not match the actual conflict on the Senate floor.  This nominee will replace Scalia; one of the most conservative members of the Court.  With Scalia, the Court tended towards a 5-4 conservative tilt; Kennedy and Roberts pleasantly surprising liberals on occasion with their opinions and votes.  This current Trump nominee will simply restore the balance to what it was before Scalia’s death.  I imagine the Democrats will rail and whine, scream and shout, and oppose Trump’s nominee with the requisite liberal blood in their eyes; but they will keep their powder dry and reserve their main artillery for the next nominee that Trump will likely make.  That will be to replace a clearly liberal member with a clearly conservative member and could actually tilt the balance of the court to the right.  That is the macro sense.

Immigration policy is a literal onion of complication and layers and will no doubt expose raw emotion and conflict not only between Democrats and Republicans, but within the Parties themselves.  This is the macro discussion that will require some type of practical disposition about how to deal with the millions of non-criminal illegal aliens currently residing in this country.  But in the micro sense, it is a fact that until we secure our borders and assess the status of immigration laws and policies that currently exist, no meaningful progress can be made on the broad subject of immigration reform.  Trump’s focus on “the wall” and “criminal illegal aliens” addresses this macro problem with a micro approach and the public understands that. 

You waste your time, and sometimes risk your personal safety, preaching to an unemployed man or woman about climate change or white privilege when their main focus is paying for food and utilities, providing shelter for their families, and trying to get their kids raised in a proper fashion.  Trump gets this.  His business-centric background puts a premium on efficiency, effectiveness, and profit.  How this translates to the art of government is yet to be determined; but in the public’s mind, it is clear that the time has come to try out this new approach.  Obama took a macro approach to the world that sought to re-frame our planet and nation in his vision; he was an ideologue.  In his mind, the end justified the means.  Trump takes a micro, pragmatic approach to the Presidency that focuses on jobs, security and the daily concerns of citizen survival.  While preservation of natural resources is important, we must first address providing a decent quality of life for our people.  It is a matter of priorities and the public gets this.

President Trump has been roundly ballyhooed for claiming up to 3 million fraudulent votes kept him from winning the popular vote in the election.  There seems to be little, if any, hard evidence to support a number this large.  However, it is also undeniable that when considering America among the world’s democracies, we have some of the most lax voter identification policies on the planet.  There can be little, if any, doubt that voter fraud does exist and that on certain occasions (I’m looking at you, Senator Franken), it might very well have decided contests that were razor-thin in their margins.  In a micro sense, Trump’s 3 million claim sounds ludicrous and the media is doing their happy dance of ridicule all around it.  In a macro sense, this might be the opening to finally take a serious look at the true extent of voter fraud in this country and the results of that examination might not be what the Democrats would like to expose. 

NBC, ABC, CBS, FOX, CNN….no one holds an exclusive franchise on reporting the facts in today’s world.  They are all having an extremely difficult time adjusting to this new reality.  President Trump and the Republicans hold a hard and fast grasp on the raw power numbers that translate into leverage in WDC.  If they have the discipline and backbone to embrace that power and use it effectively, the mainstream media is going to have to grow up and come to grips with their new place in the pecking order.  They are going to have to return to the traditional roles and principles of journalism and compete on the basis of who best reports the factual story in a timely and concise fashion.  They are going to have to understand that the public wants to think for themselves and not be told how they should behave.  The mainstream media is going to have to understand that cannot play their micro versus macro games any longer and try to use them to manipulate the news in a fashion that suits their personal beliefs.  A message to the mainstream media: Let the checkout-lane tabloids and TMZ cover the chickenshit stories that you are so obsessed with these days.  Use your experience, your intelligence, and your resources to cover the important news in today’s world in an honest, balanced, and concise fashion.