This is what governing like reality TV actually does.
Fear is efficient. It flattens complexity into villains and heroes. It rewards emotional reactions over evidence. It keeps people watching, scrolling, reacting. Fear doesn’t ask whether a policy works; it asks whether it trends. That incentive structure is great for television. It is catastrophic for government.
When leaders are trained in environments where exaggeration is rewarded, nuance is punished, and conflict drives engagement, decision-making shifts. Problems stop being things to solve and start being opportunities to provoke. Governance turns reactive. Facts become optional. Consequences become somebody else’s problem.
This isn’t theoretical. We’ve already watched a major cable news network agree to pay $787 million after evidence showed it knowingly pushed false claims about the 2020 election. That figure wasn’t symbolic — it was a receip
t. It documented what happens when lying is treated as a business model instead of a disqualifier.
t. It documented what happens when lying is treated as a business model instead of a disqualifier.
And yet, instead of that ecosystem being treated as radioactive, it has been quietly normalized as a talent pool.
Over the last several years, a growing number of political figures have come not from backgrounds in public administration, policy analysis, diplomacy, or institutional leadership, but from television studios where outrage is currency and accuracy is negotiable. Former hosts, contributors, and pundits have moved seamlessly between cable news, campaign roles, and proximity to state power. The throughline isn’t expertise. It’s visibility. It’s brand recognition. It’s an ability to command attention.
To be clear, the issue isn’t that someone once worked in media. Media literacy can be valuable. Communication matters. The problem is when propaganda incentives replace governance incentives — when people whose careers were built on framing reality rather than managing it are elevated as if those are interchangeable skills.
Reality TV logic doesn’t ask, “Will this keep people safe?” It asks, “Will this dominate the cycle?” It doesn’t prioritize prevention, competence, or restraint. It prioritizes escalation. Someone has to be the villain. Something has to be on fire. If nothing is burning, you light a match.
That mindset is dangerous anywhere. It is lethal inside institutions responsible for national security, public safety, transportation, justice, or intelligence. Mistakes made under those conditions aren’t learning moments. They’re body counts.
And when harm inevitably follows, it’s reframed as strength. Accountability is dismissed as weakness. Evidence is treated like an opinion. The public is told that chaos is the price of authenticity and that cruelty is just honesty without filters.
This isn’t about one personality or one election cycle. It’s about what happens when attention economics replaces democratic responsibility. When lying on television no longer disqualifies you from power but accelerates your path to it, truth becomes optional. When outrage opens doors, competence becomes irrelevant. When governing becomes content, people become collateral.
A government run like a reality show will eventually treat human lives like plot devices — expendable, replaceable, useful only for advancing the narrative.
We don’t need leaders who know how to win an argument on camera. We need leaders who understand that governing is supposed to be boring, methodical, evidence-based, and constrained by reality.
Because when fear-based governance collapses under its own weight, it never falls on the people who profited from the spectacle.
It falls on everyone else.
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