The final film in my analysis of
Alan J. Pakula’s “Paranoid Trilogy” is the cinematic benchmark for journalism, All
the President’s Men. The film is adapted from the book by the same name by
Investigative Journalist Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, detailing their years-long
investigation into the Watergate break-in that eventually resulted in the
resignation of President Richard M. Nixon.
Unlike the other films in his trilogy, Pakula and company were actively
living in the wake of this scandal as the film was being produced and shot. Not
only was this film used as a catharsis (Like The Parallax View), but it
was also used as occupational socialization, motivating people into the field
of journalism as the film, and its real life outcome, reinforced the belief
that these bureaucratic systems were still built for the benefit and prosperity
of the people. This brief paper will explore the historical ramifications of
the journalism of Woodward and Bernstein, the unexpected lessons learned by the
Republican party that led to the centralizing of power, the removal of shame in
politics, the undermining of the press and the first amendment, and a
de-centering of knowledge through the advent of the internet. All of which has
given rise to our current socio-political circumstances under the Trump
administration that has learned from the mistakes of previously corrupt presidencies,
as to not be felled by a newsperson’s pen.
PLOT
Investigating the break-in at the DNC
Headquarters at The Watergate Hotel in Washington DC, Cub reporters Bob
Woodward and Carl Bernstein quickly find themselves embroiled in a rapidly unraveling
conspiracy. Beset by political roadblocks, silent witnesses, and government
surveillance, Woodward and Bernstein become dogged in their pursuit of the truth
in the face of increasing danger. After nearly a year of relentless reporting,
the pressure from the power of the press reaches President Nixon, forcing the
resignation of such a popular political figure in 1974, soon after winning a
second term.
HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
Pakula’s third film in his
popularized “Paranoid Trilogy” is an interesting intersection between art and
history. The film being in some sort of production while the ramifications of
Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting were still reverberating through the
political sphere. This allowed the film to capture a critical cultural moment;
raw in both its analysis and composition. This allows the film to be a
catharsis while simultaneously socializing individuals into the journalistic
field before the centralizing of power, removal of shame (thanks to “the Roy
Cohen effect”), and undermining of The Press’s power by a narcissistic idiot authoritarian
administration makes it all implode.
Production
The
formation of this film materialized differently than its predecessors in the
trilogy. From pre-production through principal photography and postproduction it
took on a different shape. On All the President’s Men, Pakula was not
the only producer. Once Woodward and Bernstein released their book (collecting all
the articles that they published over a year investigating the Watergate Break-in
and building a case that implicated members at the highest levels of the
federal government), famed actor and producer Robert Redford bought the adaptation
rights to turn it into a film. Redford hired legendary screenwriter William
Goldman to adapt the book and Pakula to direct; who brought on Cinematographer Gordon
Willis, a frequent collaborator with Pakula to shoot the picture.
From
the beginning of preproduction, Redford wanted insights from Woodward, Bernstein
and Bill Bradlee. Bradlee especially became a journalistic lobbying force.
Through his consultation, both Redford and Bradlee wanted to make sure that the
authenticity of the newsroom was preserved, and they did not glamorize or
sensationalize the profession. They wanted the film to be as true-to-life as
possible, making sure to portray reporters as striving hard for responsibility. To that end, the film does shine an
unflattering look at the job of reporters (outside of the characters being
portrayed by the likes of Redford, Hoffman and Robards). The fluorescent
lighting of the newsroom, going door to door looking for sources, draft
writing, deadlines being met and missed; there is a true verisimilitude to the
set design that captures its authenticity.
Goldman
worked with Woodward and Bernstein in developing his adaptation but found it
difficult to fit all the reporting into a coherent script. Eventually, Goldman
decided to jettison the second part of the book that chronicled the lead up to,
and the eventual resignation of Nixon and several cabinet members; relegating
it to an ending chyron via teletype with a quite literal final punctuation at
the end of the film. It was the first half of the book which had a lot of the
discovery, the intrigue, the unfolding mystery and danger which Goldman found important
to creating tension in his cinematic retelling. Yet Redford and the “Woodstein”
writing team did not like the first draft. Once Pakula was brought on as
director, there was a rumor, started by Redford, that they spent hours
reworking the script by talking to reporters and other journalists. This claim has since been disputed.
Meanwhile, Gordon Willis excelled in
capturing the experiences of reporting. Through the camera’s lens, Willis frames
the shot with an envelopment of emotion, common in the trade. There is a
sequence of rapidly shutting doors that evokes the frustration of a story
stalled by literal doors being slammed in their face. When Woodward (Redford)
goes to meet his contact in the Justice Dept, a company man known only as “Deep
Throat” (Hal Holbrook), Willis displays a masterful use of shadow to convey
secrecy. Meeting in a poorly lit parking garage, Willis’ cinematography creates
shadows that have shadows. Pakula, having worked with Willis before, pulls out
all the sound in these scenes and lets it play out with only whispers. Then, ratchets
up the tension as he includes the loud diegesis of a car screeching through the
parking lot; leaving the audience to wonder if the efforts of our protagonist have
been compromised. Willis employs wide shots across the newsroom to show the
expansiveness of the profession, and that Woodward and Bernstein are just one
of many reporters working on important stories. He also uses tracking shots as Redford
and Hoffman are running through the newsroom in an exciting moment of ‘breaking
news’. Under Willis, reporting has never looked so engaging and invaluable.
Film as Occupational
Socialization
After
their reporting, Woodward and Bernstein considered writing a book but did not
commit to the project until after Redford expressed interest in acquiring the
film rights. In one account, Redford was instrumental in the reshaping of
the book from the reporting of the Watergate scandal, into the story of
reporting on it. This symbiosis fundamentally blurs the line between the fact-based
reporting that was done and the dramatic narrative that the film follows. Writing
the book, in part, at the behest of Redford, Woodward and Bernstein started to
think of themselves as protagonists in their own story. One impact of this was
in the script writing stage, where Bernstein and then girlfriend Nora Ephron,
penned a draft that had Bernstein be this charismatic Lothario; most of which was
blissfully excised from the final script. The only thing that survived the
completed film was this oddly paced, cringe-inducing scene where Bernstein (Dustin
Hoffman) flirts with a secretary to get information. It is the last vestigial aspect
of a draft that leaned heavily into the reporters’ personal lives.
From
a Goffmanian perspective, film and TV provide a mechanism by which authors and
writers, that are telling an autobiographical story, are allowed to engage in
impression management (Goffman 1959). This is done to shape how the audience/general
public sees them: through the development of the script and casting, all the
way to the finished product. The mechanism of a Hollywood production transforms
them from people into characters. The realities of life are stripped bare, and
what is left are all the interesting bits; the stories you tell at parties,
over-inflated for dramatic effect. In this case, filmmaking literally provides a
dramatic effect for Woodward’s and Bernstein’s impression management; and the
closer the film is to the actual events, the blurrier the line becomes. It is
possible that the notoriety of Woodward and Bernstein would not have expanded
outside of journalistic circles without the film, while the film launched them
into celebrity status. This was prior to the advent of the internet and social
media where we all actively utilize impression management to curate our lived
experiences and share all the interesting milestones and bits of ourselves that
align with our cultivated “brand”. Through this film, Woodward and Bernstein
became occupational “brand ambassadors” for journalism.
A primary conceit in Sociology is
that socialization, the process of social learning that teaches a person how to
easily exist within a society by “teaching” rules, regulations, cultural values
norms and sanctions, is heavily influenced and shaped by the media; especially
of the popular variety, as it too is a mechanism by which we learn knowledge. The
accuracy of that image, or that knowledge, is less important than its
persuasive abilities; thereby making media literacy a valuable commodity. This literacy
can get circumvented by declarations of authenticity by experts, while those
images and portrayals continue to be hyperbolic or heavily refined. We see this
play out through occupational socialization.
Occupational Socialization is a
sub-process of socialization that socializes individuals into jobs and careers.
This takes place both during Primary Socialization (childhood) and Secondary
Socialization (adulthood). Occupational Socialization is more ideal in primary
socialization and more practical in secondary socialization. Occupational
Socialization’s goal in childhood is to introduce children to the general
working world and to expose them to the structure and process of working as a
worthwhile/necessary/required endeavor. Part of that process is children
figuring out what job they want to do when they are an adult. Aside from the
fact that many people have multiple careers over the course of their lifetime,
and that having multiple careers will likely be the norm in the future, primary socialization has yet to
fully catch up. Parents still ask their children: “What do they want to be
[when they grow up]?” or “What do they want to do [with their life]?” These
questions are just as important for identity formation and an existential
exercise in primary socialization as they are when they are presented more
practically in Secondary socialization. Yet many initial ideas that we get
about potential occupations come from the media that we consume.
Occupational influence during primary
socialization usually happens through the media that we consume. In previous
essays and episodes, I have discussed the impact of film and TV on the
audience’s desire to become forensic scientists and teachers. Journalism is no different. The
representation of journalism shapes the popularity of and desire for that
occupation in primary socialization; then acts as motivation and drive for
those individuals during secondary socialization when the practical reality of
those professions, the aspects not glamorized by the media, weigh heavy on
those who chose the profession from Hollywoodized idealistic portrayals. Yet Woodword
and Bernstein as real life reporters, became elevated to celebrity status through
the film adaptation and then became the patron saints of journalism. The film
made journalism cool, and Woodword and Bernstein into icons of the occupation.
According
to Roger Ebert (1976):
"[All the
President’s Men] provides the most observant study of working journalists
we're ever likely to see in a feature film. And it succeeds brilliantly in
suggesting the mixture of exhilaration, paranoia, self-doubt, and courage that
permeated The Washington Post as its two young reporters went after a
presidency."[28]
Everyone
interested in journalism wanted to be Woodword and Bernstein. Just as every
lawyer wants to be Addicus Finch[1]. Pakula’s film is still
screened for journalists today, and even the recently released 4k Blu-ray disc
of All the President’s Men includes panels and discussion by real life
journalist about the impact of the film on both them and the industry at large.
This has become so ubiquitous that the names Woodword and Bernstein have
entered our collective consciousness beyond their success. There are those that
may recognize the names Woodward and Bernstein, may know they are reporters,
without knowing what they were known for reporting on. Instead, they have
become a part of the cultural fabric, the zeitgeist of a profession beyond its
substance.
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Film
as Catharsis Part II
Film is regularly used as a cathartic
coping strategy to help us work through and understand historical events that
at the time seemed irrational. (Brutlag 2026)
Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting
began from June 1972 to April 1973. Nixon resigned in April 1974, the book All
the President’s Men published in June of ’74 and the film adaptation was
released in April 1976. This is less than a four-year gap between the beginning
of the reporting of the Watergate break-in, to the distribution of the film.
Because of this quick transformation, the public’s processing of these events
was shaped by its cinematic reenactment.
The
consequences of dramatizing real-life events so closely together are complex
and multivariant. The timeline of events that led to the writing of the book
and the development of the film adaptation happened in close concurrency, or at
the very least rapid succession, that it blurs the lines between fiction and
reality. As stated in a previous episode of the podcast, Dr. Alicia Kirchoff discussed how
government propaganda can reshape the public’s perception of events; even among
those who lived through the event (Brutlag 2021).
Additionally,
films being more widely released and more readily/easily available than
historical documents, allow for the public’s memory to be jogged, not through a
reengagement with facts, but with the dramatization of those facts through the
lens of entertainment. The journalist’s involvement thereby gives the film a
level of historical authenticity that is self-serving and undeserved. Thus,
people do not go back to Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting as much as they
rewatch the film. For many, they are considered one in the same. Which is a
part of the problem. The film has a hyper-real quality that takes the place of
the actual reporting. The film is remembered more as a historical record than
the actual articles it is adapting. Consequently, the adaptation becomes more
real than reality itself, thereby taking the place of it (Baudrillard 1994).
People who have watched the film (especially those without a firsthand account
of those events) internalize it as a form of knowledge about Nixon and
Watergate. Therefore, when it becomes a part of their general knowledge, the
source of that knowledge gets erased and what people remember is the adaptation;
the copy, rather than reality.
Because
we look for films to help us better understand tragic or dramatic historical
events, those events and the public’s perception of them, can be misconstrued
or obfuscated in favor of the drama of conspiracies on screen. Film revels in
secret lives of the powerful; clandestine conferences of the elite that
secretly run the country. This is an idea that has grown exponentially with the
birth of the internet and social media. But what we fail to see is that the
powerful, by exercise of their power, do not need to hide, and often do a lot
of nefarious behavior out in the open (Mills 1956). Yet the public gets so
conditioned to this level of secrecy in the wake of the Watergate scandal, that
we tend to ignore the expressions and actions of the powerful in plain sight;
until they have become more emboldened as to be guiltless about them.
“The Roy Cohen Effect”: The Centralizing of Power and the Removal of Guilt
All
the President’s Men, both
the book and the film adaptation, was one of the first breaking moments of the
public’s positive perception[2] of the government since it
was solidified during reconstruction after World War II. The reporting and the
film did not begin the erosion of public support for the government. That was
first accomplished with the government’s decision to lie to the American public
about its entrance into the Vietnam war, the reality of the war as experienced
by soldiers (and then vicariously by the rest of the public through unfiltered
wartime news correspondents), and the growing civil unrest of the 1960’s. As I mentioned
earlier in this essay series, the 1970’s was already a period of transition; of
government mistrust and paranoia that Pakula was reflecting and tapping into
with the audience. Here, he struck a nerve; where the confluence of historical
events and cinematic representation became the final nail in the coffin of governmental
trust. Setting skepticism as a default position that has only grown to outright
disdain in the years that have followed.
The
title of the book and the film All the President’s Men, comes from the
nursery rhyme about “Humpty Dumpty”. The full quote being: “And all the King’s
Horses, and All the King’s men, could not put Humpty Dumpty back together
again.” The evocation of this title, in reference to this quote, implies that
Woodward in Bernstein, and perhaps the public at large, believed that the
Watergate scandal was so cataclysmic that the Administration could not be fixed,
thereby changing politics forever. Looking forward, the implication and
evocation of the nursery rhyme was apt. The Nixon administration did not
survive the scandal, and this event did change politics forever, just not in
the way that anyone was expecting.
The
Watergate Scandal was a teachable moment for the Republican Party. The Press
had shown the power of print media through their ability to unearth scandal.
The Republicans needed to counterbalance it. Nixon was an albatross around their neck, and the
party quickly cut him loose with a full and unconditional pardon that prevented
prosecutions from reaching him due to Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting.
Nixon’s Presidential successor, and pardoner Gerald Ford, said it was necessary
to “heal the country.” Yet, it has all the hallmarks of a “backroom deal”. The
anger toward the Nixon Presidency showed up in the rejection of Gerald Ford for
his own Presidential turn. Instead, in 1976, we-the-people elected Jimmy
Carter, an ecofriendly conservationist farmer with a disdain for backroom
dealing. The opposite of Richard Nixon. Republican’s seeing the disaster with
Nixon, began to strategize about how to win the people back during the 1980
election. Enter Roy Cohen.
Roy
Cohen was a repugnant human being. He first gained prominence through his public
and behind the scene machinations during the Rosenberg trial and again in his questioning of
suspected communists during the McCarthy witch-hunt in Washington, Hollywood and the
military. This also contributed to “The Lavender Scare”: a period where there was active overt
government persecution of homosexuality, even though Cohen himself was closeted
(Johnson 2023).[3]
Cohen’s trail of misery did not stop there. After the Nixon scandal and Ford’s
loss to Carter in 1976, Cohen was brought on to help with Ronald Reagan’s
campaign. It was there he met Roger
Stone and committed campaign bribery to get Regan the endorsement of
the Liberal Party of New York. However, his most impactful political role, was
in his befriending and mentorship of
Donald J. Trump.
Roy Cohen was the architect of
Trumpism as we
know it today. First meeting Trump as a lawyer in New York and protecting Trump
when the Justice Department was coming after him and his father, Fred, for racist
rent pricing for Black tenants in his buildings. From then on, Cohen acted as Trump’s
lawyer and confidant for several years. During that time, Cohen mentored Trump
about shaping the public perception in the media; and how to manufacture the
public’s consent through subtle propaganda (Herman and Chomsky 2002). There, Cohen
gave Trump three rules that has come to summarize Trump’s political Persona:
1.
Always
Attack
2.
Never
Admit Wrongdoing
3.
Always
claim Victory, even when defeated
These
three principles can encapsulate the foundation of Trump’s approach to the
media. We’ve seen him follow these three steps on the campaign trail, in
victory, in defeat, at rallies, in posts on twitter and now Truth-Social. This
aggressive unrelenting stance, this unwillingness to accept reality when it is
not in your favor, is the first step in the erosion of confidence in institutions.
Cohen’s rules, in practice, fundamentally cause a break in understandings of
reality. This is because these rules, taken to their logical conclusions, spin
lies and threads conspiracies which move us away from objective truth. In fact,
under Trumpism, the United States has become “post truth”.
Under this unique but lasting political environment, The Republican Party, fueled by Trump, learned to not cower and run from a political scandal like Nixon did, but to have absolutely no guilt in the face of it. That’s how you retain power. Cohen taught Trump, and Trump gave The Republican Party those tools to make everything an argument, and to have no guilt or show no shame for their actions or beliefs. This is what has “trickled down” to the populace and emboldened everyday individuals into being more outwardly racist, misogynist and xenophobic; because they now feel supported by those in power. Conceivably, if Nixon had followed Roy Cohen’s rules, he too would have retained power and Woodword and Bernstein would have been investigated for treason.
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The Trump Era Undermining of Press’s Power
Donald Trump is a petulant, greedily corrupt,
toxically insecure, racist, misogynistic man-baby billionaire. He embodies the
core social ills of the United States in a single person. Unfortunately, these
are also the same qualities that the media determines makes him watchable.
During the 2016 election, Trump received 2 billion dollars’ worth of free
airtime. More than
any other candidate (Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck 2018). This became so off
balanced that prominent news organizations transmitted images of
Trump’s empty podium
rather than Hilary Clinton’s Speech. Donald Trump was good for ratings
(at one time accounting for 25% of
all 2016 election coverage)
and the constant media attention caused him to surge in the polls and popularity.
When Trump went on to eventually win the 2016 election, and the world was collectively in shock, media outlets tacitly admitted
culpability. The CNN president at the time Jeff Zucker tepidly admitted that “Covering so many Trump rallies was
a mistake.”. This
of course was after they financially benefited from the coverage during the
campaign. Yet this reciprocally positive relationship would soon shift the
minute that Trump took office in 2017.
From the very first press conference
of their first term, the Trump Administration has had an aggressive and
antagonistically acrimonious relationship with the press. Granted, the
relationship between the President and the Press are supposed to be respectfully
contentious as Former President Barack Obama stated in his final Press
Conference[4].
But the reason the Trump Administration fosters
such a venomously hostile relationship with the press is because they assume
the opposite. Thinking in primarily transactional terms, and disregarding the
first amendment, the Administration believes that by giving access to the press
(and thereby granting access to the people through them) they should be compensated
with softball questions and favorable coverage. When that tacit assumption was not honored, Trump
implemented Cohen’s rules and went on the attack. Thus, since 2017, The Trump
Administration has chipped away at the power and the public trust of the Free
Press:
·
They
blocked CNN, LA Times, BBC, and The
Washington Post
from the briefing room, and later in his second term, banned CNN, MsNow and Politico; replacing them with News outlets
that they found more favorable. Namely: Newsmax, the Washington Examiner, The
Daily Caller, The Free Press, One America News Network, the New York Post, and Breitbart
News. They also allow Conservative Social Media
influencers into the Press Corps
under the title of “New Media”
·
They
called media outlets “Fake News” and used “Alternative Facts” to reject the Press’s own reporting.
·
Repeatedly
called the Press “The Enemy of the People”; constantly degrading them in
press conferences, on social media, and directly to their faces. One Female
reporter who asked him a question he didn’t like was told “Quiet Piggy” by Trump.
·
They’ve
threaten to jail journalists, raided their homes, arrested and investigated them all for doing their job.
·
They’ve
called on Brendan Carr, FCC chair, to frivolously investigate News
organizations.
·
Issued Executive Order 14290 which cut all federal funding for
NPR and PBS.
·
In
2025, the Pentagon issued a new policy that requires credentialed publications
to only publish information approved by the Department of Defense, regardless
of where or how it was gathered. In response, all but one outlet forfeited their press access in
response. Again, the Trump Administration replaced them
with a conservative sycophantic inversion
of the news.
· In 2026, Trump would create his own “State Run” media with TrumpTV: The Essentials station[5]
These
conditions are a direct response to an exposé like All the President’s Men and
Woodward and Bernstein’s reporting, making it near-impossible to repeat today. Through
these practices, the Trump Administration, with help from the privatization of corporate
media, has effectively divided and siloed American media consumption along
political lines. This has led to 59% of Americans getting their news
from social media
at least sometimes. A practice that not only causes people to consume different
information, but
results in that information having a political slant due to the consumers
political preferences.
The cause of which could be the death of objective reality that is necessary
for society to function.
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SOCIAL
ANALYSIS
In the years since the release of Pakula’s All the President’s
Men, the social fabric under which it was created and principled on, has
been eviscerated; to the point that the moral fortitude of such intrepidness is
now seen as quaint, nostalgic, and perhaps, even a little naive in hindsight.
However, it also illustrates the way that reality can be formed and reformed through
a variety of social constructions; giving us hope that while the US has always
had a villain arc from its inception culminating in our current fascistic
authoritarian era, there is always a chance to pull away from it and transform
the social order for the better.
A
Decentering of Knowledge
The
erosion of confidence in the news media signals a larger consequence on the
horizon; an upsetting of the distribution of knowledge and the erasure of objective
reality. According to Berger and Luckmann (1966), “subjective meanings become
objective facticities” through the production of knowledge that isn’t based on
truth, but rather, on belief (p18). While the reality of everyday life seems
objectified, it is through an exercise of power that it becomes so, from a
position of subjectivity. Thus, those in positions of authority have the
ability through normalization and control of information, to make their
subjective reality seem an “objective truth.” This then gets objectified as
knowledge through its filtration through social institutions like the media and
solidified by a reduction of empirical verification (Berger and Luckmann 1966).
In this context, by eroding the public trust in news media removes it as an
empirical verification on the reality created by those in power. It decenters
knowledge away from mutual understanding and consensus and moves it toward
control and suppression.
Berger
and Luckmann (1966) continues:
“Furthermore, since human
beings are frequently stupid, institutional meanings tend to be simplified in
the process of transmission so that the given collection of institutional
“formulae” can be readily learned and memorized by successive generations…In
other words, an entire legitimating machinery is at work so that layman will
remain laymen and doctors, doctors and (if at all possible) both will do so
happily.” (p70, 88)
An example
of this is the so-called democratization of knowledge through the internet. When
the public got access to the internet, the assumption was that the plethora of
information would allow the public to be better stewards. A stronger check
against the phantasmal facsimile of “objective reality” manufactured by the
powerful. Unfortunately, with so much informational access, this took too much
effort for individuals to do effectively. Instead, it normalized and
rationalized the cherry picking of information, usually to solidify already
held beliefs through the perception of empirical evidence. Under these
conditions, feelings motivate the search for facts rather than an understanding
and acceptance of facts shaping one’s feelings. This inversion made facts and
evidence just as subjective as the beliefs they are supposed to support. There
is little consensus as to what is reality anymore; especially in the political
realm. Thus, people are not motivated by truth, but by the placation or
inflammation of feelings and the spectacle that comes with it.
Trump’s
Presentation of Self- Narcissism and the Theater of the Absurd
The decentering of knowledge, the equalizing of
beliefs with facts and the obfuscation of truth, transform politics into
theater. Like native advertising and sponsored
content, where ads
look like content, which through corporate support can fuel consumerism, so too
has political propaganda merged with information. The educated public loves to
believe that they are informed, so the information presented to them is structured
in a “facts based” presentation (usually in the form of a News program). It
often uses a lot of technical and industry specific language because the
feelings of being well informed are directly relational to the feelings of
befuddlement (Lash 1979). Under such conditions, it is more important that the
information sound true rather than be factual. Instead, it needs to be believable.
Which means the purpose of the dissemination of information is not just to
control narratives but to control the perception of leadership.
Nixon devoted a lot of energy to impressing
the unseen audience as to his abilities as a leader. In his first debate with
Kennedy, he accused Kennedy of supporting the Anti-Communist revolutionaries in
Cuba, something that Nixon himself also supported but knew it was unpopular
with the public (Lash 1979). This method of political projection was perfected
under the Trump administration actively accusing The Democratic party and
specific elected officials of the very thing that the administration was
engaging in. Yet, it is unclear if the motivation behind this is as
Machiavellian as it seems.
According to Lash (1979),
The contagion of
unintelligibility spreads through all levels of government. It is not merely
that the propagandists fall victim to their own propaganda; the problem goes
deeper. When politicians and administrators have no other aim than to sell
their leadership to the public, they deprive themselves of intelligible
standards by which to define the goals and specific policies or to evaluate success
or failure. (p78)
Through
this framework, it is probable that Trump, may just assume that what they are
doing is just how politics is done; and that everyone is engaging in the same
behaviors. Because, to him, that is politics. It is difficult to extend this
grace of ignorance beyond Trump to his immediate political circle, which seems,
under the direction of the likes of Steven Miller and RFK Jr. to have a clear
agenda of Neo-Fascist White Supremacist Christian Nationalism that they are
implementing and obfuscating through political theater.
The release of All the
President’s Men, the reporting, book and film adaptation have had a hand in
constructing the political theater we experience daily. The Watergate Scandal was an opportunity for
politicians to be more open and transparent. Instead, they used it as a
teaching tool on how to better shape public opinion and make sure something
like Watergate never happened again. An example of this learned lesson was when
the George W. Bush Administration created Embedded Reporting during the start of “The War on
Terror”; especially in Iraq to help control the narrative. The idea was that
instead of stonewalling and rejecting the Press, they needed to embrace them by
integrating reporters into military units. It worked. News outlets with imbedded
reporters generated more favorable news stories than independent outlets. This is because when reporters
are reliant on the soldiers around them for their safety, those reporters
become beholden to the authority and paint them in a more favorable light in
their reporting. This carried on in recent decades causing the degeneration of
politics into spectacle, and to those that control it, into performative
ringmasters (Lash 1979).
Sociologist Erving Goffman (1959)
pioneered the notion of the performative self. An idea of maintenance of
individual public perception by attempting to control impressions of oneself
that are given off by action, mannerisms, behavior, language and a variety of
other social factors. This was continued by other scholars that studied intersectional
demographics; who understood that this performance encompassed all aspects of identity
(Butler 1990, Davis 1983, hooks 2000, Seidman 2003). We are always performing
because we have understood the world through the multi-faceted lens of these performances.
We eventually become who we “pretend” to be; once those performances are validated
through our interaction with others (Goffman 1959, Cooley 1902).
To this end, the political
ramifications of The Watergate fallout increased performative politics. In
1960, during Nixon’s first run for president, they had the first televised
debate. Nixon’s loss was partially attributed to a lack of performative polish
for the viewers, even though he had stronger answers
to the debate questions.
After Nixon successful presidential run in 68’, re-election in 72, and the unfolding
of the scandal in 74, the next major Republican contender was the former actor,
Ronald Reagan; who in his 8-year run, leaned into the rugged western cowboy
image of his years on the silver screen; despite growing up in Illinois.
Similarly, Donald Trump performed the role of the wealthy successful billionaire
in the 2016 Campaign, because prior to that, he played one on TV. This was despite being broke at the time. He did not regain his Billionaire status until
after becoming President.
Through that performance, he was able to bamboozle poor white voters into
giving them scapegoats and an image of a Savior for their troubles (Brutlag
2024). While that image has been tarnished as of late (with Trump holding a 36 % approval rating as of this writing) he has
certainly set the bar for performative politics in perpetuity.
CONCLUSION
We currently exist in a political landscape where the kind
of monumental Presidential takedown achieved by Woodward and Bernstein’s
reporting is now impossible. Those in power have learned lessons from the
fallout of The Watergate scandal and constructed their political selves and solidified
their dominance over the media apparatus to make sure that such a thing does
not happen again. With Roy Cohen’s rules as standard operating procedure, a
lack of both guilt and shame being political cultural norms, and the relentless
chipping away of the public’s trust in the news media, there is a transformation
of fact-based reporting into a generator of emotions. The confluence of which becomes
democratized in the public’s eye to the point that they are valued the same. In
such a distressing political vista, Pakula’s adaptation of All the
President’s Men is a nostalgic time capsule for a time when the powerful
could be held (slightly) accountable.
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