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Two-Party System:\u00a0 A party system where two major political parties dominate politics within a government. One of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referred to as the majority or governing party, while the other is the minority or opposition party.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI like the puppet on the left better than the puppet on the right, but when I look up, I think the same guys are pulling the strings.\u201d\u00a0 \u2013 Bill Hicks<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Picture this: two singer piano players are in a Texas night club.\u00a0 One of them says \u201cHey, I got $10 to sing the Aggie fight song!\u201d\u00a0 He begins singing and playing the piano, and those members of the audience empathetic to A&M all join in.\u00a0 However, he is quickly interrupted by the singer piano player across from him, who says \u201cNo, no, no!\u00a0 Not so fast. I just got $20 to stop that song.\u00a0 Everybody here prefers UT and knows that A&M is for losers.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the song we like\u2026\u201d, and he begins to sing the UT fight song.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The crowd sings louder, until they are interrupted by the next incoming funds necessary to stop UT, and turn it back over to A&M.\u00a0 The rivalry continues, complete with insults back & forth, until the crowd is whipped into a screaming, singing frenzy yelling at each other, and the bid has become too high (over $250) to change the course of the prevailing song.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the end of the night, you may have sung your heart out for A&M and perhaps even contributed a significant amount, but you don\u2019t care because you had a good time.\u00a0 However, something peaks your curiosity as you are ushered out the door.\u00a0 You can\u2019t help but notice the two piano players dividing up all of the money equally, and both seem to be pretty happy.\u00a0 Then it hits you, they didn\u2019t care who won.\u00a0 They probably didn\u2019t even go to those schools, but you would never stop to think about that while you were busy screaming at the other team.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So it is with today\u2019s politics.\u00a0 Internet click-bait, fake news and conspiracies, news on TV and print targeting those who lean right & left and all points in between, and media everywhere trying to \u201chelp you\u201d sort out what\u2019s factual and influence your position. Yes, it\u2019s hardball time. Snopes.com<\/a> the site that sniffs out fake emails and news picks up significantly during election cycles, as does the much talked about Wikileaks<\/a> from folks who just want to know \u201cthe damn truth.\u201d\u00a0 Is it coincidence that it\u2019s difficult to find an unbiased opinion in a two-party system?\u00a0 I think not.\u00a0 Both parties are in this game to win, and facts (real or assumed) are the ammunition.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So who divvies up the money at the end of the show in the two party system?\u00a0 Democrats & Republicans?\u00a0 The entities that buy\u00a0 influence in their legislation as a cost of doing business?\u00a0 That\u2019s worth arguing about, but let\u2019s take a look at another closely tied benefactor.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Much the same way the Jerry Springer show played to the lowest common denominator,\u00a0this year’s presidential race saw the mainstream media cashing in by taking trash talk to a whole new level, appropriately culminating in a “final showdown” in Las Vegas. (“Gosh”, says the moderator, “you guys are really ‘out of control’ (wink, wink)!”)\u00a0 Just as the sport of wrestling looks a lot different in Vegas than it does in college, so now does the sport of debate, as the main stream media increasingly borrows the playbook from the 24\/7 targeted political news channels.\u00a0 It\u2019s not their fault that’s how the system works.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter what the information is, if they fuel the fire and you\u2019re pissed, they\u2019ve done their job to increase viewership and make more advertising money for their shareholders.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n According to Tom Risen\u2019s article in U.S. News<\/a>, early on \u201cCNN was reportedly charging advertisers…40 times its usual rate, and CNBC and Fox News soon followed suit.”\u00a0 The frenzy around the candidates in 2016 and an increasingly unhappy American public helped to create a reality TV atmosphere, which eventually led to an unprecedented \u201c1,120 percent increase from the average cost of a prime-time spot on CNN.\u201d\u00a0 In other words, in case you haven\u2019t figured it out yet, FOX News and the other networks (including social media) make a lot more money when you\u2019re pissed off.\u00a0 History has shown that this may not be conducive to solving problems.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Nothing new, you say?\u00a0 The fact that advertising dollars are now unlimited may not be completely trivial. \u00a0As Vince Sadusky (CEO of Media General) told investors according to The Intercept<\/a>, \u201cOur company is positioned to benefit from unlimited campaign spending<\/strong>,\u201d referencing decisions by the Supreme Court<\/a>. \u201cWe are really looking forward to the 2016 elections with spending on the presidential race alone estimated to surpass $5 billion.\u201d\u00a0 Or as Les Moonves (CEO of CBS) memorably said, \u201cSuper PACs may be bad for America, but they\u2019re very good for CBS.\u201d\u00a0 It may be no coincidence that he later said the exact same thing about Donald Trump.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Am I suggesting that the media pushed Donald Trump (or at least went along with it) simply because of the perception that he would make them more money?\u00a0 It may have been a factor.\u00a0 Allan Smith in Business Insider<\/a> says, \u201cEarned media typically dwarfs bought media for presidential candidates, but nowhere near the level of Trump. With almost $2 billion of value estimated in earned media, Trump’s total is more than double that of Hillary Clinton\u2026and more than six times the estimated earned media value of the No. 2 Republican candidate on the list.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That looked promising in the beginning to Republicans who thought he could get their message and slogans in front of the American people.\u00a0 However, the problem they eventually realized was that they couldn\u2019t take Trump out of the message.\u00a0 The same unpredictable sensationalist personality that was so entertaining and profitable to the media eventually became a liability to the Republican party.\u00a0 Some of them saw it coming, but there was so much momentum by that time that it was too late.\u00a0 The results were surreal: \u201calmost\u201d endorsements for Hillary Clinton from the likes of the Koch brothers and Glenn Beck.\u00a0 And there it is.\u00a0 It\u2019s only business, and you\u2019ve been had.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fight promoters whether wrestling, boxing or MMA recognize this right away.\u00a0 The personality that makes people the most inflamed creates engagement, and is therefore the most valuable\u2014but only for as long as it\u2019s believable.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you Google the term \u201cjumping the shark\u201d, you quickly find it means an unbelievable occurrence seen as a desperate attempt to keep viewers’ interest.\u00a0 The term is taken from what is generally seen as \u201cthe demise\u201d of the TV show \u201cHappy Days,\u201d when the writers had the main character Fonzie jump a shark to get viewers back into the show which was losing ratings.\u00a0 Instead it had the opposite effect, because viewers could no longer willingly suspend their disbelief.\u00a0 It was perceived as too \u201cover the top.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019re hearing \u201cjumping the shark\u201d a lot in politics now, thanks in no small part to Trump\u2019s tirades.\u00a0 Going into the 2008 election, there were a significant number of people who believed the CIA, FBI, and Secret Service didn\u2019t have it together and couldn\u2019t tell that Obama was really a Muslim terrorist who was born outside of the United States. (It must be true: my friends said it on Facebook, I read it online, and I heard it on TV!)\u00a0 To be fair, some of them didn\u2019t believe those agencies could be that<\/em> incompetent, so it had to be a conspiracy–because you know, the CIA and FBI and Secret Service might have a good reason to want to propel a Muslim terrorist to the top of our political system.\u00a0 However, people were no longer so quick to jump on the band wagon when Trump recently suggested one of his political rivals may have been born in Canada.\u00a0 It became less and less believable.\u00a0 It\u2019s a one-trick pony, and people are now starting to question how much, if any, of this is real.<\/p>\n If the Donald Trump phenomenon has done anything for this country, it has helped people on both sides of the aisle make the connection that when Trump contributes to both parties, Goldman Sachs and the other large banks and conglomerates also contribute to both parties, and none of it has much to do with ideology.\u00a0 It\u2019s business, and business is a priority that doesn’t change, regardless of party affiliation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So is the media itself that fuels American two-party politics in danger of \u201cjumping the shark\u201d?\u00a0 On the surface, it doesn\u2019t seem to matter. \u00a0The more outrageous and silly \u201cthe political circus\u201d gets, the more viewers tune in and seem to be engaged.\u00a0 However, the media may have finally crossed the line in underestimating their audience, which may in turn have a weakening effect on both political parties.\u00a0 The \u201cyou\u2019ve got to be kidding\u201d factor is quickly reaching an \u201cover the top\u201d level, and when the majority of people stop taking political parties seriously, the audience starts looking around.\u00a0 They may not see who\u2019s divvying up the money yet, but they are getting to the point where they know it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n Click To Tweet<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our two-party political system with integrated media circus may be good for ratings.\u00a0 It may also be good for holding our attention and creating engagement.\u00a0 However, it hasn\u2019t been good at helping us solve problems or foster cooperation, and the current climate of sacrificing intelligence for the sake of entertainment makes us culturally dysfunctional.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n2016 may yet go down in American history as the year the media went too far and the majority of Americans began to see the political duopoly as a dog and pony show.<\/h6>\n
Who Won the 2016 Election? The Media: Thanks to “Jerry Springer” Politics.<\/h4>\n
<\/div>\n\n2016 Politics: P.T. Barnum might have been proud, but the rest of us are embarrassed.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n2016 is the year the majority of Americans finally realize our duopoly is a dog and pony show.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nJumping The Shark<\/h4>\n
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<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nPolitics 2016: Collective human intelligence in exchange for entertainment is not Fair Trade.<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nChanging the Channel<\/h4>\n