The REALITY SHOW ELECTION: The US is Binge Watching the GOP Presidential Train Wreck.

http://www.alternet.org/why-america-binge-watching-trump-cruz-and-trainwreck-election?akid=14102.294211.UH9SO2&rd=1&src=newsletter1053175&t=8

Last week, Gallup asked Americans if they were watching news about the presidential campaign “very closely.” Four out of 10 said yes. I’m one of them.  That’s crazy. Are you one of them? That’s crazy, too.

There are plenty of high-minded reasons to follow campaign news. It informs us about the issues. It educates us about the candidates. It makes our choices meaningful. It makes us a polity, not puppets. It honors the blood spilled to secure the freedom of the candidates to speak, of the press to cover them and of the people to vote for them.

But does that describe the campaign news you’re consuming? Ninety-one percent of U.S. adults told the Pew Research Center they learned something about the presidential election in the past week. Just 2 percent of them – 2 percent! – said a national newspaper was their most helpful source of campaign information. Maybe they got issues and analysis. But the 24 percent who said cable news was their most helpful source of information? The 14 percent who said local TV news? The 14 percent who said social media? I’m not saying they got nothing civically nutritious. But judging from the hours I waste on campaign news, the word I’d use for what I get from it isn’t information – it’s entertainment.

Great entertainment, actually. Half the adults in the presidential debate audience, and six out of 10 under 30, told Pew the debates were “fun to watch.” You couldn’t want more entertaining characters than Trump, Cruz, Clinton, Sanders, Carson, Christie et al. The story has been riveting, full of shock and suspense, and the stakes just keep on rising. What fresh hell is next? What vile version of “Little Marco” or “Lyin’ Ted” will Trump unleash on Clinton, as he toldMaureen Dowd he will? Will party maneuvers to prevent Trump’s nomination cause riots at the Cleveland convention, as he predicted on CNN? Will Trump leverage the chaos and violence he provokes and condones in order to present himself as the law-and-order strongman that Americans will be clamoring for? No wonder we can’t look away – we might get to see someone killed.