RUSH: Somebody asked, “Would you elaborate on your point that American corporations are misjudging the American mainstream?” I’ve always said that if you want to know America, watch advertising because the people responsible for creating advertising campaigns have to nail it. If they’re trying to sell a product or service, they gotta reach as many people as persuasively as possible, meaning you gotta do all kinds of market research to find out who your audience for your product is and how best to reach them, what’s best going to really hit them emotionally.
And ever since Twitter and social media, I think — and I’ll elaborate, but not now ’cause there’s some things I want to add to this. I really think that Twitter is causing a lot of formerly clever and adept people to totally screw up. It’s not just advertisers and advertising agents. I think it’s the Drive-By Media.
I think Twitter has skewered the ability of a lot of people to figure out who this country is. It isn’t Twitter. Twitter does not come close to representing a majority thought in this country in practically anything, except maybe, maybe the most inane, banal pop culture stuff. But on serious political issues, Twitter — journalists have relied on Twitter as a stand-in for public opinion. And I think a lot of corporate marketers who don’t do their own market research are doing the same thing.
And the result is that you get really banal advertising of the Super Bowl yesterday that most people don’t recognize. What’s the point? Why is that gonna make me want to buy whatever it was that was being advertised? To prove my point, I can’t remember a single product that was advertised. Sitting here right now there’s nothing that made an impression. I can’t remember a single product. Up. Sorry. Turkish Airlines.
And you know why I remember Turkish Airlines? Because I didn’t know that it flies to more cities than any other airline in the world. I’d never heard of Turkish Airlines until yesterday. I’ll expand this because I think it’s also creating a bunch of really messed up television shows.
You can’t turn on a television, you can’t turn on a network or a TV in prime time without seeing the focus on the characters, their lives as incomparable, unending suffering. And I don’t mean the suffering of — it’s psychological suffering. And it’s as though a majority of America is suffering and in great pain and crisis over things that are not specifically named.
And then yet a mainstream journalist goes to a Trump rally and finds joy and finds happiness. You know what happens at a Trump rally? You find normalcy. And somehow normalcy has been rejected because it’s not politically correct or it’s not cool. If you’re not suffering and if you don’t recognize suffering, then why, you don’t care and you have no compassion and you have no empathy.
Suffering is unavoidable, but it’s not something you want to make a permanent aspect of your life, your attitude. And yet this is how it’s been portrayed.
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