Trump’s bombastic style prevents critical examination of his policies. Media massages message.

Is this the year of Marshall McLuhan’s “The medium is the message.” No one appears to even consider the absurd policies Trump advocates. It reminds us that McLuhan later co-authored a book that substituted “massage” for “message,” in which it was argued that the medium “massages” the human sensorium, the place where symbols get interpreted by the senses. In this application it appears that Trump’s simplistic, but forcefully presented, solutions to frustrating political problems that are of concern to a wide audience, “massages” the sensorium, so that his policies take a back seat to his style. Thus far it has prevented a critical examination of Trump’s proposals. Whether Trump’s “massage” can keep Republican voters from examining his “messages” for the length of a long campaign is the interesting question. Similar cases, such as Huey Long and Adolph Hitler, suggest that we are only one large economic downturn away from electing a demagogue. In that light “interesting” becomes “frightening.”