As a primetime news anchor working in the 24-hour news cycle, Chris Hayes knows what it takes to not only grab people’s attention, but to also keep that attention.
But that plea for people’s attention has never become more competitive. According to Hayes’ new book, ‘The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource,’ attention has now become the new hottest commodity not just for tech companies, news outlets, and social media influencers, but also the most powerful man in US politics: President Donald Trump.
In this fascinating interview on ‘Mehdi Unfiltered,’ Hayes tells Mehdi how Trump’s ability to command people’s attention is ultimately making, “everything dumber.”
“This kind of table-pounding, braying insistence – which is the default Trump mode of rhetoric – he’s very good at rhetoric, and very good at attention, but it is also instupidifying,” Hayes tells Mehdi. “It makes everything dumber. It can't communicate complicated ideas. And so now we have one of the stupidest moments of self-destruction ever seen in recorded history.”
In this wide-ranging interview, Hayes explains Trump’s strategy of grabbing attention at any cost, and how it has contributed to his rise in political power.
“What happened was that the attention age… which is an era in which attention became the most valuable resource, met this man [Trump] who had this sort of pre-existing feral instinct for it,” Hayes says to Mehdi. “He doesn't care about the downside effects of negative attention, he views all attention as valuable.”
Mehdi asks Hayes why he thinks Trump’s attention strategy works so well for him, despite failing for people like Vivek Ramaswamy and Kari Lake.
“What I think makes Trump different – and I think Musk is now in this category – I think you have to be so deeply and genuinely sociopathic,” Hayes says to Mehdi.
You can click here to buy a copy of Hayes’ latest book, ‘The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource,’ and also, do share your own review of it with us in the comments below!
Looking for more book recommendations? Visit the Zeteo book club here for inspiration!
Paid subscribers can watch the full interview above to hear Mehdi and Hayes discuss why the Democratic Party often struggles to hold people’s attention, why AOC is so important to the party’s future, and what billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter really represented.
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