The Afghanistan Obsession Briefly Explained
In the middle of a pandemic & climate disaster, corporate media wants you to obsess over a place that is no longer our responsibility ... & that's nearly 8,000 miles away
Publisher’s Riff
For much of the last decade, the war in Afghanistan was a forgotten war, at least in the United States. For most, it was the frequent backdrop for many a modern war movie set and we’d watch like: “oh, yeah, that place.” Even when there were days where U.S. soldier casualty rates spiked, some unfortunate or tragic day, American public conversation was generally preoccupied with its own problems and excess. Afghanistan war theater dispatches became, in all honesty, footnotes.
Now, with the complete withdrawal of U.S. military forces and assorted government staff from Afghanistan, the topic of the rugged and virtually lawless region is being shoved down our throats relentlessly. Daily media obsession over the withdrawal is designed to make us believe we actually cared about Afghanistan the entire time … knowing damn well we didn’t, nor did corporate media. Even as the Biden administration pulled off the rather remarkable evacuation of more than 120,000 civilians while surrounded by enemy Taliban forces and under attack from ISIS-K terrorist elements - a near Dunkirk-level feat - media can’t help but describe it as chaotic and messy. Biden should keep pushing back against that and find ways to control the narrative: 1) Most Americans weren’t paying attention to and didn’t want this war; and 2) 120,000+ people were evacuated in the middle of hostile enemy presence while Biden administration diplomats were able to skillfully negotiate with impatient Taliban forces. This was rather historic and should be appreciated later in military history classes.
There are two factors driving the obsessive coverage and need to describe the evacuation as unsuccessful: ratings and racism.
Ratings
One of the reasons we’re being drowned in a non-stop media fetish over Afghanistan is because mainstream media outlets need a boost in their ratings (and, ultimately, the key ability to generate revenue), per Hollywood Reporter …
Biden’s First 100 days were the most quiet for corporate media in several years, as the president’s steady and competent executive style seemed to not only put once anxious viewers at ease, but also to sleep, according to The Hill at the end of April …
Media experts like Scott Robson, a research analyst with S&P Global Market Intelligence who studies cable news, say viewership this year essentially peaked during the Jan. 6 insurrection and has been going down since.
“We are seeing a similar trend for the broadcast evening news shows,” he added.
Traffic is also down for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Los Angeles Times, Reuters, the Boston Globe, Vice, Vox and BuzzFeed.
Some of those sites had more traffic in March than in February, but all are down since the start of the year.
“I’m sort of hearing, seeing the same thing regarding news ratings, digital subscriptions, etc. since [former President] Trump left office,” said Steve Passwaiter, a vice president and general manager of the campaign media analysis group at media analytics company Kantar.
The declines were not unexpected. Media observers began speculating in late 2020 about how Trump’s absence might affect the industry.
From the absence of the Trump presidency to the continuing trend of “chord-cutting” or more cable viewers choosing streaming services over cable bills, cable news giants are desperate for a ratings boost. Hence, cable news executives made the decision that the Afghanistan withdrawal made great theater that could glue viewers to their screens. Plus: even through COVID and the dramatic slow-down in vaccinations, Biden still appeared relatively unscathed. Media itched for a narrative that showed him as much more incompetent and his administration much more bumbling or inflexible.
Racism
White voters - particularly White independents and many White “moderate” Republicans - won’t generally admit that their dislike of President Biden, or any major Democratic politician for that matter, is driven by the impression that Democrats are too closely aligned with Black voters and Black political interests. Hence, Afghanistan arises as a supreme opportunity to deflect; it’s an issue decoy that conveniently helps many White voters by offering them a public issue to reject Biden on that’s easier to discuss than their own racism typically driving their hostility to Democratic Party or “progressive” and “left-leaning” candidates. Just look at the racial breakdowns of job approval ratings for Biden during the withdrawal, via YouGov …
As the late (I’ll argue great) law professor Terry Smith argued in his classic must-read work Whitelash: Unmasking White Grievance at the Ballot Box just before his very untimely death …
In short, whitelash describes the reactionary impulse of many White voters toward racial equality movements and societal shifts they perceive as excessive. Of necessity, then, the phenomenon is based on the erroneous, racist view that racial inequality is a natural order and that Whites should control the pace at which it is dismantled.
Basically: many White voters will oppose political interests closely aligned with Black priorities. President Biden is perceived as such. We see this unfolding in voter perceptions over recent infrastructure bills currently being considered in Congress: there’s greater White support for the $1.2 trillion “bipartisan” infrastructure bill that’s primarily focused on classic roads-bridges-brick infrastructure vs. lower White support for the Democratic priority $3.5 trillion “social safety net” overhaul. See Quinnipiac ….
When the YouGov description of the infrastructure plan is switched from “bipartisan” (which, in this context, translates as the “White approved” $1.2 trillion plan) to “Biden’s plan” (which is the $3.5 trillion all-Democrats plan or, translated, “people of color OR Black plan”) we see the dip in White support from one infrastructure plan to the next …
This is evident in a recent Monmouth University poll, as well …
These White voters won’t admit that it’s racial animus driving opposition to these priorities. Instead, the Afghanistan withdrawal presents a prime opportunity to talk about something else.