News Club Interview - The US election

Welcome to our second News Club interview series

The year is (sort of) drawing to a close, and I thought it might be useful to revisit some of the biggest news stories of the year. I do hesitate to say the biggest news stories because news is subjective - what is big to me might not be big to you. But I hope we can all agree there are some large themes - one being US politics and the upcoming election. 

So, how best to come at this so we add value and get you thinking? The answer is Ben Smith. Ben Smith is a former media reporter for the New York Times, a political reporter for Politico and former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. Two years ago, he launched Semafor - a new media business that aims to tackle the issue of polarisation in media. 

For those who listened to our Newsmakers series, it flows on perfectly from that. Ben gives informed insights into the way media is being used in this election and the experience of being in America during this time. He has met both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and he talks about his impressions of them. He has stories of his time covering the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and a great anecdote about an interaction with the Clintons. 

Ben perfectly fits the News Club mould; he’s a person interested in various points of view, he’s impressively articulate and he’s very considered. 

Listen to the full episode here, watch it on YouTube or scroll down for 3 highlights from our chat. 

Highlight #1: “The real story of this US election is fragmentation”

Ben Smith: Everything's getting split up, getting smaller. There are tons of smaller voices, smaller podcasts, smaller newsletters, and the smaller things are becoming medium-sized. The bigger things are getting smaller, but they're not disappearing, you know? Like, Fox News and the New York Times are still the biggest and most influential pieces of American political media, but they're both a little smaller and less influential than they were. And no single thing is rising up to replace them.

What's rising up instead is lots of different things, which makes it very hard to understand what's happening. I mean, I would say TikTok is the biggest platform for these voices. It's very hard to understand what's happening there. Like, you saw this incredible surge of interest and support for Kamala Harris, which was certainly reflected on TikTok and seemed to be driven by it. But the platform is very opaque. You don't really know what's going on there, and you also don't know to what degree the people who own it are trying to put a thumb on the scale.

Highlight #2: “Every member of the Democratic power elite had already been courted by Harris over the years”

Ben Smith: I first met her when she was California’s Attorney General in 2009 or 2010. At the time, I was a mid-tier Washington reporter, and they decided to try her out on me. She was very smart on law enforcement issues, but when I asked her about national politics, she was surprisingly unfamiliar. I remember thinking it was as if she were the justice minister of Poland or something - California felt like its own country. 

The political system there is different—it's too big for retail politics, like shaking hands. The focus is more on quietly positioning yourself to be chosen by the power elite and ingratiating yourself with wealthy donors. Harris excels in this, and you saw these skills come into play when it seemed like Biden was out and the field was wide open. But suddenly, it wasn't wide open, because every member of the Democratic power elite had already been courted by Harris over the years. It turned out that even Hillary Clinton thought she was Kamala Harris's best friend - something no one knew.

Highlight #3: Obama’s election in 2008 was supposed to bring “diverse coalitions, a different leadership style, and younger leaders”

Ben Smith: I think one of the key things about the 2008 election is that you don't always know at the time what will shape the future. At the time, we all thought the significance of that election was that it marked a turning point, moving on from the divisive fights of the 20th Century, like the lingering debates over the Vietnam War. There was a sense of "let's just move on, we don't need to resolve those old conflicts." It felt like a generational shift toward a more diverse America, with diverse coalitions, a different leadership style, and younger leaders. But that turned out to be wrong. Barack Obama is still the youngest among major political figures - far younger than Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or even Hillary Clinton who was nominated after him.

Instead, the real figure from that election who seems to define modern American politics is Sarah Palin. She was a relatively unknown, unqualified vice-presidential pick by John McCain, yet she had this intuitive populist, anti-establishment edge. In many ways, she was the precursor to Donald Trump.

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