The Reality of Reality TV
Hollywood and reality TV didn’t just create Trump’s platform—they created the conditions for his success. Whether they admit it or not is another question entirely...
The Reality of Reality TV
Did you know that Hollywood and reality TV inadvertently helped pave the way for Donald Trump’s presidency? It’s true. While difficult to quantify with hard analytics, it’s undeniable that reality television provided Trump with a powerful platform to cement his national popularity.
Reality TV didn’t just entertain—it reshaped American culture. The 1990s ushered in an era of excess, with the genre thriving on conflict, drama, and a voyeuristic obsession with personal lives. Shows like The Real World and Survivor glorified spectacle over substance, turning everyday people into commodities. The message was clear: fame required no talent, just audacity and controversy. This format rewarded outsized personalities and manufactured narratives, setting the stage for Trump’s media dominance.
Without the reality TV boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, it’s hard to imagine Trump achieving the level of celebrity that made his political career possible. The Apprentice allowed him to cultivate a larger-than-life persona, positioning himself as a decisive leader while carefully controlling his image. The entertainment industry—particularly in California—gave him the stage to refine his brand, which later translated seamlessly into politics.
Reality TV’s impact wasn’t just about Trump—it reflected a broader cultural shift toward spectacle-driven storytelling, where entertainment and credibility became increasingly difficult to distinguish. This foundation was laid by media architects like Jann Wenner (Rolling Stone Magazine) and the founders of MTV—Robert Pittman, Les Garland, John Sykes, and Tom Freston—who pioneered a new form of mass entertainment that blurred the line between reality and performance.
MTV, in particular, was instrumental in normalizing the concept of scripted reality. The network revolutionized media consumption with music videos, blending hyper-stylized visuals with commercial branding. This formula extended seamlessly into reality television with The Real World in 1992, a show that presented itself as an unscripted social experiment but was heavily guided by producer manipulation. The idea that reality could be packaged, edited, and commodified for mass consumption was a breakthrough—one that reshaped television, journalism, and politics.
Jann Wenner’s Rolling Stone similarly reshaped cultural narratives, elevating figures based on political and social alignment rather than objective merit. His editorial style didn’t just document pop culture—it actively manufactured it. Wenner’s media empire helped cultivate the idea that fame and credibility could be bestowed by elite tastemakers, a notion that reality TV later exploited. In the MTV era, perception became reality, and what audiences believed to be real was often just well-crafted illusion.
Trump, more than any politician before him, understood this shift and weaponized it. He didn’t just appear on reality TV—he mastered its language, its theatrics, and its emotional triggers. The Apprentice wasn’t about business acumen; it was about creating an image of dominance, authority, and success, regardless of the behind-the-scenes reality. By the time he ran for president, Trump had spent over a decade training American audiences to see him as a decisive leader. His campaign rallies were structured like television events, designed for maximum emotional impact, filled with viral soundbites and antagonistic showdowns that played out like Survivor tribal councils.
When the political class responded with traditional campaign messaging, Trump leaned into the MTV-era playbook—provocation over policy, branding over substance, and constant media spectacle. The bi-coastal elite, who had long controlled the cultural narratives through legacy media, found themselves unprepared. They hesitated, unsure whether to treat Trump as a serious political threat or a tabloid distraction. In doing so, they played directly into his hands. By 2016, the public was conditioned to reward conflict, spectacle, and reality-show-style combativeness—qualities Trump embodied better than any of his opponents.
In the end, the forces that had spent decades manufacturing cultural power—the very architects of modern entertainment—had built the perfect environment for Trump’s rise. Whether they recognized it or not, they had helped create a world where media spectacle ruled, and reality was just another storyline waiting to be shaped.
Today, reality TV is facing its own reckoning. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by former reality stars, exposing the exploitative nature of the industry that helped shape modern political media. Former Real Housewives of New York star Bethenny Frankel has pushed for unionization efforts, citing the lack of protection for reality TV workers who sign away their rights for the sake of manufactured drama. Contestants from Love Is Blind and The Bachelor have also spoken out, detailing how producers manipulate footage, push emotional breakdowns, and exploit personal struggles for ratings.
These lawsuits highlight a fundamental truth: reality TV, like modern politics, thrives on illusion. Just as contestants are edited into villains or heroes to fit a pre-planned narrative, Trump leveraged his reality TV persona to fit the role of political outsider, despite being a New York establishment figure for decades. The media, having spent years profiting from spectacle, underestimated how powerful that illusion could be when it extended beyond entertainment.
In the end, Hollywood and reality TV didn’t just create Trump’s platform—they created the conditions for his success. Whether they admit it or not is another question entirely.
This article has been adapted from my new book: The Myth of California. The Amazon Kindle version is available now. The full book, paperback and audiobook will be released June 6th.
Endorsements for "The Myth of California"
"California was once America’s “Promised Land” where people flocked to find gold, good weather, and opportunities in everything from movies to manufacturing. It was the agricultural epicenter of the world, known as the “salad bowl” of the planet. But decades of leftist leadership has destroyed everything but the weather. It’s become “Paradise Lost” with homelessness, unanswered crime, and choking tax rates and regulations causing people to flee in stunning numbers to get to places where their families can live without the boot of big government on their necks and cultural cuckoos setting the atmosphere of the lifestyle. Chad Hagan details what happened in his riveting book, “The Myth of California: How Big Government Destroyed the Golden State.” It’s the tragic story of how the irrational left destroys everything it touches and how one state exchanged its gold for garbage.
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"My father was a car salesman in a town of 800 people in Northern Minnesota. He had one vacation in his working life, and we took a trip to California. He had a friend who had settled in Carlsbad years earlier and wanted to visit. I was 10. My brother was 11, and our sister was 7. We were in awe. It was a modest home, beautifully maintained, with a yard full of fruit trees. We picked oranges and ate them in the yard. We had grapefruit off the trees for breakfast. I dreamed of moving to California for years. No longer! Chad Hagan’s book, The Myth of California, will make you disappointed, infuriated, and then just plain sad. It is a cautionary tale about how politicians can destroy a paradise in one lifetime. Ultimately, unchecked political power serves only itself. The citizens are included only to pay the bills. It is also a testament to how the crazies run the world. Most of us just want to go to work, come home and relax, and build a family and life. The crazies don’t think that way. They are loud, and they vote. Ultimately, politicians whose only interest is in power, cave in to them. (A government permit needed to wear heels taller than 2 inches in Carmel? Spare me!) As Californians now flee in droves, the stories they tell disabuse us of any notion of paradise. This book does that in spades. Read it!"
- John Linder, Former U.S. Congressman (GA-7)