Media is agonizing over the moral dilemma of showing Trump live on TV, since his appearance might cause harm to audiences. "Even as Donald Trump seeks his third straight Republican presidential nomination, his live appearances still present an unsolved riddle for many news outlets: How do you cover him?"
Outlets weigh whether an event's newsworthiness justifies live coverage when there's a risk Trump will make false statements that are difficult, if not impossible, to correct in real time — or go completely off script with something entirely unexpected. ... Fact-checking on the fly can be extraordinarily hard, and many of Trump's supporters are more inclined to believe what comes out of the former president's mouth than what a news organization declares is true.
Trump is a real-life example of the "Bird Box" premise, after the title of a 2018 horror movie where there exists something so terrible that, if seen, will instantly blast your mind and cause you to kill yourself. The movie characters stumble through life wearing blindfolds. They drive around in cars with covered windows using GPS with pet birds to warn them by agitation if the Presence is near.
In Bird Box politics, the public must also avert their eyes, or better yet, don a blindfold when He appears onscreen, always taking care they are accompanied by the media, who, like birds, will warn of the evil's proximity, lest they become instantaneously unhinged. The problem is how to conduct political coverage in 2024 with every glimpse of the monster blocked off, given the monster is running for president. This is the media Bird Box challenge, after an Internet craze inspired by the movie where "Bird Box" fans walked around the real world in blindfolds in imitation of the show's characters. "Netflix has issued a warning to its customers thanks to a meme challenge that has gone viral in which people are choosing to put blindfolds on and navigate the world around them just like the characters in the horror movie 'Bird Box.' Let the hilarity and the hospital visits begin."
The Bird Box metaphor is not entirely far-fetched. Why, in history, do certain images, often the same one, evoke the Savior in some but the Devil in others? "Americans face a bizarre phenomenon: We have an outgoing incumbent President ... who is seen by some as a savior, and by others as the proverbial Devil incarnate. The Antichrist." How can we explain this? Psychologists believe it is because the symbol taps into something deep within us. What we see is fueled by our inner state.
One way of understanding this strange and frightening phenomenon has to do with what psychologists call the "halo effect," known also as the "halo and horns effect." The halo and horns effect occurs when all attributes and behaviors of an individual, for better or worse, are viewed through the lens of our initial impressions. ... So how we perceive President Trump--as devil or messiah-- is determined, partly, by our preexisting biases. For example, those supporters that know him primarily from his public persona as powerful, wealthy, successful businessman and television star, see him in a highly positive light.
Trump is therefore a mirror of our division. If Donald Trump had appeared in 1955, there would be nothing he could stir up in the hearts of American voters with his visage. Rather, it is the piled-up tinder within us in 2024 that gives his mien such potential that the media regard it as demonic. The Bird Box is within.
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