A sharp explanation of how American politics has become so discordant. Journalist Klein, co-founder of Vox, formerly of the Washington Post, MSNBC, and Bloomberg, reminds readers that political commentators in the 1950s and ’60s denounced Republicans and Democrats as “tweedledum and tweedledee.”With liberals and conservatives in both parties, they complained, voters lacked a true choice. Sabato discussed his book Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics. In his book, Mr. Sabato discusses what he sees as the major changes that have occured in.
A quarter-century after the first publication of his book, “Feeding Frenzy: How Attack Journalism Has Transformed American Politics,” Larry Sabato is witnessing a frenzy like never before.
In the book, the University of Virginia politics professor and director of the Center for Politics described a growing media trend in which a critical mass of journalists cover an embarrassing or scandalous event with the intensity and abandon of piranhas attacking cornered prey. He argued that the consequences of this phenomenon could be dire for the electorate and the political system at large.
Despite his warning, the frequency of feeding frenzies seems only to have increased.
UVA Today sat down with Sabato to talk about the impact of this trend over the last 25 years. On Aug. 12, he also joined UVA via Facebook Live to discuss how it pertains to 2016 specifically.
Q. What are some of the top feeding frenzies of 2016 so far?
A. I’d have to write a whole new volume just to cover Donald Trump’s frenzies. You don’t have enough space for a complete list, but his harsh comments on Mexicans, John McCain’s non-hero status because he got captured in Vietnam and Trump’s universal ban on Muslims coming into the U.S. are three good examples. If someone could have confiscated his iPhone, he would have been better off.
Watergate gave birth to the 'character issue,' and broadly defined, character can cover everything. The press has had a permanently adversarial relationship with every president since Nixon.' -- Larry Sabato, director of UVA's Center for Politics
As for Clinton, she’s had a mega-frenzy over her State Department emails. The dressing down by the FBI director was unprecedented, and it cost her big-time. And no one will ever be able to account for Bill Clinton’s lack of judgment in appearing uninvited on the attorney general’s plane; that impropriety was also very damaging to Hillary.
Q. How did Watergate fuel the rise of the modern feeding frenzy?
A. Until Watergate, the White House benefitted from an “imperial Presidency” that protected our chief executives in many ways. For one thing, they were given the benefit of the doubt in ways unheard-of today, not least the conduct of their private lives.
Watergate gave birth to the “character issue,” and broadly defined, character can cover everything. The press has had a permanently adversarial relationship with every president since Nixon. The media didn’t mention Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair or John F. Kennedy’s girlfriends. Even minor gaffes are headlines today.
Q. How is the modern feeding frenzy different from the type of gossip and scandal coverage that has interested the press since the earliest days of journalism?
A. Among many differences is the social media phenomenon. Nothing is off-limits; the news cycle never ends and rumors mentioned online legitimize blanket coverage.
In the old days, a relative handful of journalists and editors could decide whether something became public or not. In the age of Twitter and blogs, millions of people are their own news organizations. Very few things stay secret for long, even in the national security arena.
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Q. Since you wrote the book in 1991, how has the changing media landscape helped intensify the feeding frenzy phenomenon?
A. The establishment media organizations don’t drive the news anymore; they are driven by the ever-changing trends on Twitter, Facebook and the like. Frenzies end only when the public is sated, especially partisans. CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX and CNN can say ‘enough!’ all they want – no one cares.
Q. What is the impact of this trend on the political system?
A. When you know everything there is to know about someone in the public sphere, you are likely to be more critical. It’s just human nature to focus more on the vices than the virtues. The same applies to political and governmental institutions. If you believe the coverage, they can do nothing right. Cynicism is corrosive, and we have more of it than ever before.
Q. What are the consequences to voters?
A. The “best people” don’t run for public office anymore. Maybe they never have, but ask any party leader: It is extremely difficult today to convince the most successful individuals to become candidates for anything.
Who loses when the highly talented turn away from public service and leave it to the mediocre? We do. Our system does.
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Q. Is there a way to break the cycle?
A. With the strong support of the University, I’ve dedicated the last years of my career to trying to improve civic education, from kindergarten all the way up to senior citizens. Education and citizen participation are the twin pillars that support good government. We take seriously our responsibility of teaching and helping to build the next generation of strong, ethical leaders, and to encourage their active participation in politics and government as early as possible.
Ours is not a perfect system, but politics is the civic glue that holds together an incredibly diverse and often conflicted nation. It is the engine of our democracy. Like any other engine, when the driver looks away or disengages, it can run off track. In that sense, the mission of the Center for Politics is to offer the best driver-education program possible to as many people as possible.
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Article Information
August 10, 2016
https://news.virginia.edu/content/sabato-discusses-25-years-political-feeding-frenzies
It is sad that every vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court sets off a political feeding frenzy in Washington and throughout the country. It is as if a new appointee is intended to be a super-legislator, rather than an impartial arbiter of disputes between and among citizens and the government.
The whole process is infused with political overtones. Nowadays, it happens regardless of which party is in power. It does not have to be that way.
In 1967, the State of Idaho enacted legislation to insulate judicial appointments from politics and cronyism. It has worked well and resulted in a corps of professional judges, who decide all sorts of legal disputes, both civil and criminal, in an even-handed manner.
When there is a district or appellate court opening, a seven-member Judicial Council gathers information on judicial candidates, publicly interviews the candidates, considers input from the legal community and public, and then sends a slate of 2-4 candidates to the governor for appointment. Magistrate judges are impartially selected by local magistrate commissions.
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I believe a similar process could be implemented on the federal level without transgressing provisions of the U.S. Constitution. Article 2, Section 2, of the Constitution gives the president the power “by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate” to appoint judges of the Supreme Court. It seems like the Senate could exercise its advice and consent by setting up a non-partisan process to vet and recommend a slate of highly-qualified candidates to the president for appointment.
Almost any system for appointment of justices to the Supreme Court would be preferable to the usual slugfest that the current process has become. Presidents are tempted to appoint people whose political views align with theirs on specific hot-button issues, disregarding the fact that the court is expected to deal with a much wider range of issues. The tendency is to appoint younger people, without an identifiable track record, who can serve into their dotage, disregarding the fact that this excludes a large number of older experienced lawyers with exemplary legal careers.
And speaking of dotage, there ought to be some limit on the length of service of Supreme Court and other federal judges. Article 3, section 2 of the Constitution says that federal judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behavior,” which is assumed to be for life. However, I think the constitutional framers would be surprised to see so many old folks hanging on to judicial offices.
I have never been a big fan of age limitations on public office, but I am starting to think they may have some merit. I served 12 years on the Idaho Supreme Court and figured it was time to hang it up and let someone else have a crack at it. About 9 years ago, a group of distinguished legal scholars proposed that a president should be able to make one Supreme Court pick after each federal election. The longest-serving justice on the court would automatically go on senior status and only sit on cases where there were less than 9 justices participating. The idea has some merit. The longer a justice sits in the ivory tower of the court, the greater the likelihood of losing touch with the real world.
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There are a number of things that could be done to insulate the court system from our present corrosive political climate. The public increasingly views the Supreme Court as a mere extension of our dysfunctional political system and that is dangerous to our democracy. It is time for Congress to take a comprehensive look at ways to reestablish the impartiality and standing of our high court.
Jim Jones is a former Idaho Supreme Court chief justice and a former Idaho attorney general.
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