So something went down this week, If you don’t know what it is just from the topic of this post then maybe you don’t deserve to have access to the internet. Just saying!
So this week, November 9th to be precise will go down in history as the day the media and popular opinion failed.
Firstly, we all know that the media plays a core role in politics, the way the image of a candidate is projected by the media has a huge stake in how the masses judge and perceive them to be. Its all branding.
Lets take a case study of the Nigerian Elections in 2015, I don’t know if you all noticed but media branding was a core part of the Buhari campaign. From putting up pictures of him taking tea made with sachet milk, to him claiming he has only one house just to make the lower class feel like he is one of them. Its all branding.
And it worked quite well for him, though we have now found out that his wife rocks Hermes bags and other designer items worth millions of naira; I wonder if she wears these items in the kitchen or even in the other room. 😕
(See what I did there)
So fast forward to the US presidential race and how the media failed.
If you followed up on the lay up to the elections, you would say that Trump could never win because his image on the media was sh*t! Trump was portrayed as the devil, not even the Antichrist, the devil.
Now I’m not going to say this was the handiwork of the opposition, because we all know that Trump said some really horrible things in the course of his campaign, and his campaign was riddled with tonnes of mishap – The most famous one was his wife’s speech, or should I call it Michelle Obama’s speech. (Or Michelle Obama’s speech writer’s speech. 😒)
With things like that going on, it is hard to have the media portray a good image of you except you have a strong media PR team just like the ones Jagaban employed to handle Sai baba’s campaign.
But one thing that struck me when all these we’re going on is the fact that Trump was always in the news (although for the wrong reasons) and he got the highest (negative) publicity. Hillary Clinton was not as prominent in the press as Trump was ‘cos bad news always makes headlines and that is Trump’s specialty.
And as the saying goes, no publicity is bad publicity (I don’t 100% agree with this saying but it’s quite true).
So the media polls picked Clinton as the favorite to win and Trump the “bad guy” favorite to lose, but look at God! (😒)
So where did the media get it wrong, I like to believe they judged too hastily and expressed their opinion on TV not the opinion of the masses.
I’m not a Trump fan, neither am I a Trump hater (I don’t want to be barred from visiting the US 😔), but let’s look at it this way, Trump’s campaign rallies were always filled up, people attended his functions, we never heard of a Trump rally where he ended up speaking to chairs. And this went on from city to city, what did the media think these people we’re there for? To eat free jollof rice? Of course not! Its not Nigeria.
These numbers in attendance and still they shoved off the hint that he might win, just because they “supposed” that a right thinking person will not vote for a trash talking man like Trump. They refused to learn from the Nigerian scenario, Buhari won the elections without attending any Political debates. In a right thinking country a political aspirant that refuses to openly debate and answer questions that would be raised on issues going on in the country and how he would tackle it, does not deserve one vote. In fact he should be dropped by the party. But hey, he’s in Aso Villa today, going on world tours and what not.
This is enough example to let the US media know that when the people want something, they are blind to everything else, even if it is not logically right, the people must get what they want.
Even God had to give in to the people of Israel when they wanted a king, he tried to warn them but in the end, the people must get what they want so he gave them Saul.
Saul wasn’t a good choice in the end, same as Baba is not, and Trump may not be…but the people gets what they want.
You know if this were to be Nigeria we would have said they rigged the elections because the results were not in line with what the popular opinion was.
This would teach us to break out of the mentality of “no right thinking person would do this”, do you seriously think everyone is right thinking?
A study once said that 80% of Nigerian have mental health issues of one form or the other. I agree, I talk to myself, I sing and dance in the bathroom, I remember funny stuff when I’m on my own and laugh while people around look like what is wrong with this guy. I am not normal! So don’t put me in a box.
Secondly this should teach us not to judge by popular opinion. The popular opinion in Nigeria is we are anti-gay, but look at Bobrisky, patrolling the entire Yaba metropolis with his head high.
Judging from popular belief someone like that should be in hiding from the police, but instead the police is his friend. (see what I did 😁)
In the end, if you don’t learn anything from this, you should at least learn this:
Don’t believe the hype!
…and also try to watch The Simpsons more, they might just predict your future, you’ll never know.
Written by Dozie (Ro) Amanze.
RO's BLOG 