Ignore The Noise

Make. It. Stop.

With the disastrous Iowa caucus in the books and the nation's first primary due to unfold on Tuesday, we are already seeing that our media has learned nothing from 2016. Being here in New Hampshire, I've had the unfortunate privilege of seeing various national media outlets set up shop right around the corner. Having a razor-thin result in Iowa has only fueled the media's talking points over the past several days. Is Pete Buttigieg the next Obama? Is the nomination Bernie's to lose? Is Joe Biden already done? Will Mike Bloomberg's strategy pay off? Is Elizabeth Warren finished? Will Amy Klobuchar ever catch fire? Like kids on Christmas morning, the media's talking heads are giddy. They're giddy because they know that they have a story whose first chapter has whet the appetites of their audience and that same audience is tuning in to see how the story unfolds. With an audience comes ratings and with ratings comes the almighty advertising dollar. In short, the corporate executives at the major news networks could not have asked for a better start to 2020.

But that does not mean it has been a good start for democracy in 2020. In addition to the absolute clusterfuck that occurred during the first-in-the-nation caucus in Iowa, we are already seeing media talking heads begin to craft the narrative for the next 5 months. That narrative is, quite simply, conflict. We've got the rebellious political left candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren versus the "establishment" candidates in Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar with upstart Pete Buttigieg ready to take them all down. Waiting in the wings is billionaire Mike Bloomberg, ready to pounce if it seems like the moderate wing of the Democratic Party is in a dire situation. Beneath it all is the million-dollar question as to whether or not the party can fully unite behind a single candidate to take on Donald Trump. You can see the glee of the MSNBC reporters on location in New Hampshire as they ask their audience who they are supporting and get six different answers from six different people. As far as a drama goes, the election is shaping up to be a doozy.

Except, it really isn't.

With a whopping 1.4% of the total 3,990 delegates having been alotted, we still have much to learn. Currently, Pete Buttigieg has .65% of the needed delegates to clinch the nomination. New Hampshire, as much value as is placed on its importance, won't actually tell us a heckuva lot about the eventual Democratic Party nominee. What it will tell us is which candidate the 4th least diverse state prefers for its 24 allotted delegates. Even if Buttigieg or Sanders wins New Hampshire, either candidate will likely be only 1% of the way there to the total number of delegates needed. Despite endless hype and narratives, the fact of the matter is that after Tuesday's New Hampshire primary, 99% of the Democratic race will not yet be determined.

But facts be damned. Our media doesn't want you to know that Iowa and New Hampshire have bit parts in this grandiose play. They don't want you to know that two of the least diverse states aren't actually representative of the Democratic Party as a whole. They don't want you to know that roughly 39% of Democrats are people of color, a group that not only hasn't voted yet but also one that is critical in the swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. They most certainly don't want you to know that 24% of the Democratic voters are African-American, a group that Joe Biden currently leads by 28 points nationally, including a 27-point lead in South Carolina, the first state with a majority of African-American Democratic voters. And they most certainly don't want you to know that Bill Clinton only won 1 of the first 11 primaries in 1992, with the state of Georgia being his only victory until piling up victories on what became known as Southern Super Tuesday.

The problem is that those inconvenient facts get in the way of their story. Imagine hearing an author saying "the book doesn't get good until the 5th chapter." Knowing this, you'd surely be disinterested in reading the first 4 chapters. And yet, that is the exact situation with which our media is faced. They know full well that we won't have a full picture of the Democratic primary until Super Tuesday on March 3rd when 1/3 of the total delegates will be allotted, providing a true indication of the strength of all of the remaining candidates. Because of this, they must fill these first 4 chapters, aka primaries, with as much drama as is humanly possible. So that's what they'll do. They will paint Joe Biden as being down and out because so that they can present him as the comeback kid when he wins South Carolina. They will continue to milk the Bernie-Buttigieg "rivalry" for all it's worth. They will continue to float Mike Bloomberg as the mystery candidate. And, unfortunately, they will continue to disparage both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar showing us once again that female candidates will receive the same treatment in 2020 as they got in 2016.

So while those of us in New Hampshire will finally get a reprieve after Tuesday, the rest of the country will have to endure these manufactured storylines through the month in February. But as long as we know this, we will be fine. Like 2016, the media views this election as entertainment with the voting public as peons needing to be entertained. Upcoming debate questions will be loaded. Candidates on the campaign trail will be asked to attack and disparage their opponents. Polls will come out and be spun accordingly. But none of it matters until Super Tuesday, the day when the race will finally take shape. The 3 weeks between the New Hampshire primary and March 3rd will be a cacophony of conjecture, none of it real. The sooner we recognize this, the more bearable that time will become for all of us who are closely following the primary and who have a vested interest in the final result.

A final result will definitely not be determined in the month of February.