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I think that’s true, although I think another big part of it is the character of the administration in charge at the time. The media apparatus has historically worked co-dependently with administrations to manufacture consent in ways that make sense for the moment, and I think the tone/approach/assertion of the propaganda ecosystem at a given time changes dialectically with the character of the government (and of course the technology driving the media consumption). Like the character of the propaganda is pretty different between Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump, and for a ton of reasons. But you can’t slap the chauvinism of Bush era propaganda onto the liberal dandy of Obama era and get a fit that feels right. That’s not to say presidents set the culture of the media landscape, but they certainly influence it and are influenced by it.

It kind of seems like Trump breaks the media paradigm performing this historical co-dependent function because of his own extreme narcissism. Just the absurd way he operates, and therefore also his admin around him, creates a unique gravitational center around which media organizations have to strain to orient themselves. I just don’t think they’re structured to deal with it in a short-term way.

His Truth Social posts have constantly caught the media off guard with a stream of unhinged, outrageously bold lies which they then have to orient their operations around. He’s so regally minute to minute with his actions and statements that I think creating a structured approach to manufacturing consent is almost impossible. It’s like trying to build a Jenga tower of public consent with the pieces constantly moving — it’ll crumble the minute you try to grow it.

But also, like others have said, why manufacture consent when there is no organized opposition, or I guess more importantly, no mechanisms to create organized opposition? The future crises that will be constantly unfolding as a result of climate disaster, war from the changing environment of unequal exchange, resource scarcity, and all the draconian law enforcement that will arise as a response, will do more work to prevent the working class from organizing than any media apparatus will at this point.

Honestly though when we get more coherent future presidents, I think we’ll see at least an attempt at a return to more organized forms of consent manufacturing, because that’s always more comfortable than flying by the seat Trump’s unhinged pants. Or we won’t, because the mechanism of trust in media, whatever the form, is now fundamentally broken (from material reality, from AI, from whatever), and they recognize it would be a waste of time. But I’ve learned to never underestimate the depths of cruelty American political subjects will withdraw into for the selfish preservation of their own mental, and material, comfort.

If the ruling class get more comfortable with not manufacturing consent, the working class will get more comfortable with withdrawing their consent to be governed.

It is statecraft without historical literacy and comes from a place where they have lost the lessons of why this is done in the first place. They have forgotten.

I feared that epstein files will make ruling class more comfortable realizing they won't be punished for even the most fucked up crimes.

For what it's worth, I think we are one Epstein-motivated Luigi away from seeing the cork pop on a bunch of copycats. Maybe that's just wish casting on my part, but there's a lot more ideological infrastructure built in to protect health insurance executives than there is for pedophiles.

But officially punished? Yeah I agree.

I had someone at work who has never said anything about politics to me afaik tell me that the US is doing this for the Iranian people. There's clearly some consent manufacturing going on somewhere that works on people who lack any broader context. I think we just clown on how bad the attempts are so much it's hard to take those attempts as serious.

america deindustrialized so extensively, we can’t even manufacture consent anymore

Lol

It doesn't matter. Nobody's organized. Who are you going to seize power with? Your church? Your union? Your neighbors? You probably don't have any of these and even if you do you probably don't have much meaningful connection to them. Until Americans rebuild American society there is no internal threat to the empire.

They desperately tried to manufacture consent for Iran. Even now you still see the idiotic lies of the Iranian gov killing 30,000 protesters.

Just up until a weeks ago you had libs all in lockstep for war, war and holy war. However they bombed a girl's school and Khameine's family on day 1 while forgetting that Americans aren't israelis and do not broadly cheer for the naked slaughter of civilians. Even in pro-western imperialism lib spaces there is a sense of shock at the cruelty of the government's actions.

Regarding Iran, I think the lack of consent manufacturing is going to hurt them.

It’s becoming a war of attrition of sorts and popular support is a resource.

The war started with a majority opposed to it, and with a plurality with negative views towards Israel as well.

Once gas prices start to crunch it will rapidly become a wildly unpopular war.

I think it's possible that it'll only take one New Super Luigi U taking out someone from the Epstein Class to strike fear into them. I think they're building a giant house of cards right now, in every way possible. Everything seems worse than ever but it's also the most fragile.

The deeper issue is the overdue political realignment, kept from happening due to the partisan monopolies set up by the Republicans and the Democrats. There is a disconnect between electoral politics and literally every single instance of policymaking in the american estabilishment. Everything from concentration camps to health and education is decided through a bipartisan consensus that is hostile to the public. The same applies to Foreign Policy but only in so far as the United States is comfortable doing war by proxy or massacring people via sanctions, assassinations and bombing campaigns. Should the US ever feel the need to do a new Iraq War, they'll need to do consent manufacturing for it to happen. And the Iraq War still needed a leg up from 9/11 happening.

All in all, it doesn't matter that the Trump Administration sacrificed itself on the altar for Israel and the Christian Nationalists. The Iran War is bipartisan, as was the Gaza Genocide, as is the Ukraine War and the same will apply to the Taiwan War. And, besides, losing the House and the Senate means nothing when the Democrats agree with everything Trump does, except on form. Trump might not be impeached even if the Dems get a super majority.

1. Consent manufacturing takes time to devise and deploy. This war was entered hastily and recklessly without prep time for propaganda.
2. The war is a political hot potato that no one wants to hold. Everyone knows it’s going to be a disaster. Who, besides Trump and Hegseth, is going to own it? Everyone is happy to let them fall on that sword when the midterms go terribly and we can all move on from a blunder that can be entirely scapegoated to Trump. You aren’t gonna see anyone else enthusiastically support it; only vague notions of supporting America and its troops will pass.

I think part of the issue with the current Iran war is that it was never supposed to be a war. It was supposed to be like when Trump kidnapped Maduro or assassinated Soleimani. Not sure what their plans were for afterwards but they seem to not have anticipated the current situation. So I think that’s part of the reason there’s no real manufactured consent, it was just supposed to be Trump and the military acting on their own volition and then gloating about their wins. Now after the fact they’ve had to do some half assed attempts at consent manufacturing with “Iran’s been at war with us for 47 years,” and “Iran is going to bomb California” because they realize they might have to go boots on the ground, the global economy is gonna go ass up and there will be lots of casualties. But all their attempts are dumb and half assed because they’re all off the cuff attempts to deal with a situation they didn’t expect. I think that’s part of the issue you’re seeing. What it seems like to me at least

You only have to look at how the tables have turned. Before, people accused China of closing up its information and internet to the outside world. Now, it's EU forbidding Russian media, and the US forbidding Chinese social media unless owned by Yanks (tiktok). It's thanks to this material change in global ownership of the narrative (linked to the declining economic capabilities of the empire) that support for Palestine has grown massively

What I keep thinking is that they're acting like there aren't going to be elections anymore. This is not the behavior of politicians that have any fear of the midterms.

I think you are pretty spot on and it will continue like this. Epstein files and their lack of consequences increased the threshold for the capitalist class to get away with whatever they want. And the Iran war without manufactured consent is the cherry on top. Working class is far too crippled for them care about justifying anything.