Donald Trump Is a 1960s Technology Critic’s Worst Nightmare

Fifty-six years after technology critics worried that television would revolutionize—and degrade—American politics, Donald Trump is the embodiment of their worst fears: He is a candidate who picks stunts over substance, who deliberately obfuscates rather than clarifies his thinking before the public, and who routinely tells blatant lies as part of a political performance that’s tailor-made for the modern spectacle of broadcast politics.

The ugliness of presidential campaigns predates Trump by generations, but it was never quite like this before.