The Earlier Media Whore

Abbie Hoffman doing Stand Up Comedy at West 78th St., August 29, 1989
(Photo by Dan Godfrey/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

WC regards Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R, Lunacy) as a media whore. A media whore is someone who will do or say anything, no matter how outrageous, to get attention from the national media and social media. Outrageous conduct is a media whore’s norm, because the media will always react to outrageous behavior.

WC can support his thesis by examining an earlier media whore, this one of the far left rather than the far right: the late Abbie Hoffman.

WC met Abbie Hoffman – well, photographed him – when Hoffman was at the University of Oregon for a rally. A reporter for the student newspaper, the Oregon Emerald, interviewed Hoffman while WC snapped a few photos. Hoffman’s answers to the reporter’s somewhat naive questions were deliberately provocative, laced with obscenities and outrageous claims. WC was taking a class in Persuasion at the time, and used the interview in a required essay, because Hoffman’s conduct was so extreme it sabotaged his anti-Vietnam War purpose, even if it did get him front page story in the Emerald. It was clear to the reporter and WC that Hoffman was there for the attention, not to change anybody’s mind.

That was a major theme in Hoffman’s life: grabbing attention by being outrageous. Sure, he nominally supported political causes, but his conduct was counterproductive to his avowed aims. In fact, as many of Hoffman’s contemporaries noted, it provoked a backlash. The books he wrote, including Revolution for the Hell of It and Steal This Book, got a lot of media attention but didn’t change any minds. The 1970 Nixon show trial of the Chicago Seven “conspiracy” featured nearly daily provocations by Hoffman. It got him a lot of attention, but had no lasting effect.

Worse for Hoffman, even when he had a serious, reasoned message, as he had in the book he co-wrote with Jonathan Silvers, Steal This Urine Test, a methodical takedown of Nixon’s War on Drugs, Hoffman’s reputation as an attention-seeking buffoon made the book largely ineffective.

Hoffman was reportedly diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1980, and committed suicide in 1989. There’s a pretty good biography of Hoffman, Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel, by Marty Jezer, published in 1993, if you are curious.

WC thinks that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a less charismatic, less intelligent version of Abbie Hoffman, for whom ultra-conservative goals are just a means to the end of her endless attention-seeking behavior. Greene’s conduct is greatly magnified by social media – WC shudders to think what Abbie Hoffman could have done on social media – but the mindset is the same. For Greene, it doesn’t matter that her outrageous behavior sabotages her avowed goals of promoting conservative values. Because getting attention, being the focus of attention, is her goal and everything else is in service to that goal.

The latest example is her effort this month to oust Rep. Mike Johnson (R, Christianists) as U.S. House Speaker. Fancying herself a power broker, she brought her motion to the floor of the House on the eve of weekend adjournment. Only 11 Republicans voted with her; her effort failed 349-43. For an ordinary elected official, that kind of overwhelming defeat would be humbling. Not Greene. She got some more attention.

The voters in her Georgia election district would be better served by someone who was focused on them and their values, rather than endless self-promotion and attention-seeking.

WC doesn’t want to reinforce or reward Greene’s attention-seeking behavior. Absent something genuinely unusual, this will be WC’s last blog post specifically discussing Greene. Call it the Palin Principle.