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The Message Is More Important Than The Messenger
We often confuse the messenger with the message.
Our media, both mainstream and social, are focused on individual actors and are at risk of mistaking the messenger for the message.
Every day it seems someone has something to say about Donald Trump, Nigel Farage or Pauline Hanson. They’re all well known populist politicians in their local political sphere that have been in the game for years.
What they have in common is being a megaphone for every imagined grievance in society and their claim to offer an answer to those grievances, both real and imagined.
Problem is, what they offer is not an answer but permission for you to project your grievances onto marginalised members of society: immigrants, LGBTI individuals, and anybody else not part of your ethnic, political or religious group.
Social media feeds are littered with posts from people either singing the praises of these people or denigrating them for being political charlatans.
The mainstream media is fascinated by them as well, and often gives them a free platform to voice their message of grievance politics.
I don’t see them as the message. I see them as messengers bearing witness to something being wrong. Mind you, they…
