He describes comments from the network demanding that Trump appear more frequently in episodes (given how much he was paid). So the show added segments in which Trump presented his assessment of how the challenges might play out for candidates vying for office within his organization – recorded assessments After the challenges were over.
“The net effect is not only that Trump appears once again in each episode, but that he also now seems prophetic in the way he knows how things will go right or wrong for each individual task,” writes Pruitt. “He appears to see everything and know everything. We are led to believe that Donald Trump is a born leader.
At the same time, to foster the perception that Trump was the pinnacle of success, his flaws were hidden on screen. Taping a Jessica Simpson concert at her New Jersey casino, for example, posed special challenges, according to Pruitt: “The lights on the casino sign are out. Hong Kong investors actually own the place – Trump is just lending his name. The carpet stinks and the surroundings of the Simpson concert are rundown to say the least.”
The solution: “We revolve around all that. »
Trump’s initial awkwardness in each show’s final, dramatic boardroom scenes softened as the recording progressed. But a new problem has emerged, according to Pruitt.
“Trump made crude comments that he found funny or amusing – some of them both misogynistic and racist,” he claims in the essay. “We have removed these comments. Go to one of his gatherings today and you can hear a lot.
It also alleges that Trump used a racial slur during an episode planning session, a comment recorded by others in the meeting. In a statement to the Washington Post, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, without providing evidence, called Pruitt’s essay “fabricated” and “fake news.”
Pruitt suggests that all of this — the creation of the infallible Trump, the perfect leader — helped Trump’s election in 2016. He notes that Trump parlayed his newfound success into “Trump University,” real estate courses that were announced shortly after the broadcast of the show’s second season and which gave rise to multiple allegations of fraud. (Trump settled these cases shortly after the 2016 election.) If Trump’s new persona could persuade people to hand over money, why wouldn’t we assume he could persuade people to hand over their votes?
It turns out that new research strongly suggests that this is the case. An article by Eunji Kim of Columbia University and Shawn Patterson Jr. of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania uses statistical tools and analyzes to assess the show’s effects on Republican primary voters .
“As most voters lack personal interactions with politicians, connections between candidates and voters are primarily parasocial,” they write, referring to a phenomenon in which people build perceived one-way relationships with celebrities. The study notes that early seasons of “The Apprentice” attracted more viewers than NBC’s nightly news broadcasts, reinforcing the extent to which Pruitt’s deceptions were consumed by Americans.
“Using a survey of white voters conducted before the 2016 presidential election, we find that regular viewers of the program were more likely to trust Trump, feel a personal connection to him, and reject critical information instead. “regarding his candidacy,” Kim and Patterson write. “The open-ended responses further reveal that Apprentice viewers explicitly relied on aspects of his television personality, such as his business experience and leadership potential, to explain their support. In contrast, Trump-supporting nonviewers were more likely to evaluate his campaign along more typical partisan dimensions.”
This is partly a function of the media; News stories about Trump regularly featured — and reinforced — his role on “The Apprentice.” Trump’s candidacy quickly focused on immigration; Kim and Patterson’s research determined that there was one in three articles mentioning his show that mentioned Trump and immigration.
The fact that Trump comes from the world of reality TV, they argue, also helps explain his policies.
“Relying on public support without the mediation of traditional political institutions,” they write, leaders who have emerged like Trump “can bring about dramatic, heterodox shifts in mass opinion and public policy.” .
Trump’s success in 2016 is not solely due to this show. He also had a recurring role on Fox News, appearing as a commentator on its morning show every week for years before announcing his candidacy in 2015. This focus on immigration, first presented during the announcement of his presidential campaign, generated enormous media coverage and a backlash that raised his profile among Republican voters. But Pruitt and the researchers offer a compelling case that the show played an important role: Pruitt in the way she presented Trump and the research into how that presentation was received.
“There is an assumption that reality TV is scripted,” Pruitt writes. “What’s really happening is illusion of reality by staging situations in an authentic context.
In the case of “The Apprentice,” this illusion convinced many people, helping to propel Trump at the Republican nomination. Then he became president and got rid of the perceptions created by the TV show. A constructed reality elevated him to the point where he could change actual reality. Trump was once an outsider seen as exceptionally capable, thanks to his public persona. Today, he’s an insider who defines what it means to be an insider on the right side. He is no longer the exception; he made his exception the norm.
Pruitt very clearly regrets the role he may have played in making this possible.
washingtonpost
