Gary Johnson never had a chance in making the stage for the Presidential debates in 2016.
The reasons can clearly be traced to media strategy, laziness by the populous, and something known as character theory. Indeed, the media has helped to make the U.S. population intellectually lazy; and we have allowed them to do it. One must realize and acknowledge that a newspaper or other media outlet’s objectives is not to educate a population in an election in order to help the citizenry make the most informed choice; the media’s goal is to attract eyes in order to sell advertising and earn money.
At a conference six years ago I was struck by a phrase from Vint Cerf, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, ‘Father of the Internet’, and currently the Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He said Google’s business model was to sell advertising. Reflect on that for a moment, then consider its implications for the media culture in which we live. Nearly every moment of every day is a competition for eyeballs, and the winner is rewarded by larger advertising dollars designed to reach more American consumers. The context of elections is no different. CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the BBC, USA Today, the New York Times, all desire one thing: ratings.
Mainstream media outlets have no vested interest in erecting a third podium on the debate stage for one simple reason: it would detract from the prototypical antagonist-protagonist form of debates, literature, and film. Without question, a third party complicates things. They reduce the total airtime devoted to pitting Trump against Clinton; they force moderators and citizens to consider a third (perhaps non-traditional) viewpoint on a given issue; and perhaps most importantly in the media cycle today, they can detract from the convenient narrative that the debate is a winner take all title bout in which either the Democrats or Republicans will emerge victorious.
Character theory is used to analyze literature, plays, films, and media. Broadly, there are several character types of which many are familiar: the hero, the villain, the false hero, among others. Applying this theory to the upcoming Presidential debates, I would hypothesize that media outlets realize the best opportunity to drive ratings is to exclude any outside forces that could potentially detract from the singular Clinton – Trump showdown.
Just whisper the word ‘conspiracy’ and one immediately risks marginalizing his position and subjecting himself to laser-focused criticism, typically of the superfluous form. However, if one decomposes ‘conspiracy’ to its basal elements (its definition according to Merriam Webster) we find that a conspiracy is ‘a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.’ While I will concede the media portrayal of the Johnson campaign might not be orchestrated by a cartel of media moguls smoking cigars in dimly-lit rooms, one cannot ignore the actions of the media stemming from recent events, including ‘Aleppo-gate’, and chalk it up to journalistic independence. Indeed, signs point to a systemic plan to immediately discredit the Johnson campaign because of this one gaffe, even though the same media outlets mostly failed to respectfully cover his campaign at any point in the recent past.
Recalling that the media’s objective to attract eyes, readership, and circulation to sell advertising, it is not surprising to consider that educating the populous on ALL available candidates for President is not a primary goal. Rather, creating, then promoting the simplistic ‘hero versus villain’ narrative is the best option to drive readership and viewership through to Election Day. Consider Walter Shapiro’s recent Op Ed piece on September 16: “Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws and failings, is the only person standing between Trump and the Oval Office. Cluttering up the debate stage with a third candidate — whose presence will inevitably change the tenor of the evening — is far too risky. It’s dangerous enough that America is currently chancing handing the nuclear codes to a bilious billionaire.”[1]
Unfortunately, this does a considerable disservice to the citizenry. Not only has this media paradigm succeeded in promulgating the false narrative that voting for a third party candidate is wasting one’s vote, it has also limited the amount of media coverage devoted to Johnson and Stein, which results in artificially low polling numbers for these candidates. Again, in isolation it is easy to dismiss low polling numbers as confirmation of the lacking viability of a Johnson candidacy however the consequences are much more damning and far reaching. The low polling numbers are a direct result of the populous not knowing who Johnson is, in large part due to the media’s own refusal to provide respectable coverage of his candidacy; in essence the media is controlling the outcome of the game itself.
The end result is Johnson failed to reach the arbitrary 15% polling threshold established by the Commission on Presidential Debates and will not share the stage with Trump and Clinton on September 26 in the first debate. Never mind that Johnson is polling higher than Ross Perot at the same point in the election of 1992, or that 62% of Americans polled want Johnson in the debates.[2]
Sadly, Johnson never stood a chance of making the debate stage and there is little he, you, or I could have done about it. It is not convenient. It is not to the benefit of those in media looking to drive ratings. It would complicate the job of columnists and news outlets who will write and cover the aftermath of the first debate. Unfortunately for every American, it continues to perpetuate the myth that the only choice we face in every election is whether to pull the voting lever for Red or Blue.
[1] http://www.rollcall.com/news/opinion/presidential-debates-gary-johnson-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-risk
[2] https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2375
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