Voters are done with 'reality TV' politicians: Analysis

New York Times opinion columnists EJ Dionne and attorney Sarah Isgur are catching hints that President Donald Trump is turning American voters off to the kind of loud and stupid personalities willing to “eat a cockroach” for money.

Dionne began his assessment with a comparison to Civil Rights worker Fannie Lou Hamer claiming to be “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

“I think a lot of Americans, beyond their partisanship even — especially normie Republicans, who aren’t MAGA — are just tired of this. And so, these states will be a test of that,” said Dionne, speaking to voters forced to vote in freshly mangled districts that Republicans are gerrymandering.

Isgur pointed out that polling from Trump-supporting Republicans “has remained remarkably consistent that they are still on Trump’s team,” but she agreed that less cultlike Republicans are getting sick of the news and the same chaotic face churning it to froth.

“I learned from The New York Times recently that reality TV viewership has dropped off a cliff. Hollywood is no longer producing new reality shows,” said Isgur. “They’re canceling the ones that are already out there. And so, basically, after a quarter-century of the reality TV experiment, it has — to use the original meaning of it — jumped the shark. How many times do you need to see someone eat a cockroach to be like, ‘Yep, people eat cockroaches for money, I guess’”

“And so, I think as we have been becoming tired of reality television, you will see voters get tired of reality TV politics, because the two are inextricably linked,” Isgur continued. “Reality TV politics grew as reality TV grew, and it will die as reality TV dies. And you’re seeing little examples of this along the way. You have the Democratic primary, for instance, in Texas, between Jasmine Crockett — far more the traditional reality TV candidate, very aggressive, negative online, attention-seeking — versus James Talarico, who ran a very traditional grass-roots model — having an actual ground game, a positive message — whom I’ve referred to as the ‘Ted Lasso’ candidate. And I think you will see more of those candidates break through.”

Dionne took issue with Isgur corralling Crockett in the pen with “reality TV candidates” and predicted Talarico “may run a clip of you talking about him as the Ted Lasso candidate.” But he also noted a distinct drop in sales of Trump political paraphernalia, possibly linked to voter disenchantment.

“Someone had a story recently, that the sales of Trump paraphernalia, that they sell branded, are way down, apparently. And maybe it’s Trump inflation, but I don’t think so. … I do think what’s going on is more political than a pure market or mood analysis suggests, even though I think some of your points make some sense to me,” said Dionne. “Our colleague at the Times, Kristen Soltis Anderson, recently wrote about a real difference between MAGA Republicans and what she called “normie” Republicans. And normie Republicans are really disenchanted, to the point where their turnout in this election may be very low — that the MAGA side will turn out, but that those Republicans will not.”

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