Corruption of the masses

Jerry Springer, Elon Musk and the modern generation of the flood

Corruption happens to them, not to us. A comforting thought. An unsettling delusion.

January 7 2025 marked the release of the new Netflix miniseries Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action. It documents the maddening descent of a kindly son of Holocaust survivors into the gatekeeper of the seven circles of hell. He should have known better. He did know better. But everyone has a price and his was a net worth of 60 million dollars.

“Judge not lest ye be judged”. Sound advice and generally well worth heeding. We all have done things we are ashamed of; secrets we would rather leave unrevealed. So to shame another seems hypocritical at best, tempting fate at worst. Yet the crimes of Jerry Springer both to television and (rather more importantly) American culture are so egregious that his demeaning behaviour is worthy of public comdemnation. Indeed it demands it. It is all too easy to absolve the shameless host of responsibility; using the love-filled care of his disabled daughter as an excuse to cast his producer in the role of sacrificial scapegoat. For although Richard Dominick was the corruptor in chief, Springer was the idealist human being who allowed himself to be corrupted. Every tale of temptation has a Lord Henry Wotton. But it is the Dorian Gray who must be held accountable for his wrongdoing.¹

[Dorian Gray (2009): The corruptor and the corrupted]

So notorious is the Jerry Springer Show in our “culture” that all can recount its sins by heart, yet the court demands its indictment. Regular and producer-encouraged fighting leading to serious injury. Confrontations between Jewish heavies and members of the KKK. Teeth knocked out. Pounds of flesh literally removed. Nudity was commonplace and exploitation of the most vulnerable in American society ruthlessly solicited. There was no line red enough that it was inappropriate to cross: Bestiality, penis amputations, you name it: Dominick even said (only half-jockingly) that he would be prepared to see an execution on screen if he could arrange it. And the consequences came, as inevitably theywould, when one love triangle too far ultimately led to murder.

Dominick at least was honest. He was seeking ever-higher ratings in the infernal race with Oprah. He sought ever more debasing innovations to maintain the interest of the viewer. It was exploitation or cancellation: for him the choice was clear. The production team, under intense pressure to come up with the goods, continued to up the stakes, accepting increasingly unvarnished trash in the name of gold. They went to extraordinary lengths: manipulating guests to fight and threatening the reluctant with flight home-less sanctions. Losing their jobs was the excuse and when challenged by their conscience, they replied that they “had” to do it. For following orders is always the last refuge of the war criminal.

But amongst this barely concealed skulduggery, Springer remained oddly aloof in a state of incredulous moral purity. The show was facilitating free speech and fighting censorship! It was permitting the unheard to air their stories! How very noble. Sometimes the facts were too hard to deny; even Springer, faced with a history of letting Nazis on his show in a way that would have shamed his survivor parents, felt forced to approach the truth: “I don’t do a talk show. I do a circus. There are just no lions.” But despite the belated honesty - the realisation that this bear pit, the reenactment of the Roman colosseum, was his own doing - he just laughed it off. Interviews on talk shows, handsome paychecks, long-sought after fame: all these were more than sufficient to allow the charade to continue; modern Christians torn apart by beasts was necessary for the distraction of the mob. His total corruption was such that despite his fame and fortune, he continued in role for 10 years after the departure of Dominick until every last sinew of personal dignity had finally been expunged.

It was never meant to be this way. Springer, an aspiring politician with dreams of a better world, had been an accomplished news anchor, even winning an regional Emmy award for commentary. The first incarnation of the show had been positively conservative with an aged audience and an uncompelling format. But its worthy dullness had little impact on an audience who voted with their remote controls. Bottom of the weekly viewing figures, the ratings had to increase or the show would have been cancelled. It was in this context that Richard Dominick was hired to reboot the show. And it worked. His increasing disregard for moral norms led to the franchise’s overnights exploding upwards (even overtaking Oprah at one point) in an unwanted commentary on the new decadence of America. From bottom of the ratings barrel to bottom of the moral barrel was child’s play: it meant forgetting all you were taught at Sunday School.

But here’s the rub. Beyond the shamelessness of Dominick and the faux moral post-justifications of Springer lie the truest, most complete victims of their corruption: the general public. Springer was a front and we were the guilty. Indeed the viewing public were entirely responsible for the ensuing malaise. Sure enough, those that knew better facilitated it; the so-called educated throwing red meat to the masses. But it was the masses themselves that tuned in. Had the original attempt at talk show earnestness paid off, no Dominick would have needed arise to change the cultural fate of the nation. Yet the public decided and the public got. True democracy some may say. The ease with which we can descend to Roman barbarity would be terrifying if it wasn’t so predictable. Indulged by those in search of personal fortune, the television voters selected the most crass, most despicable, most deplorable option on market. And given the gatekeeping responsibility to uphold standards of integrity and decency, the cultural level holders demurred. Springer, unsure at first of the show’s change of direction, ultimately needed little persuading. The money-fueled publicity came pouring in and deterministically infected his once upright conscience.

In a fable worthy of the pre-Noah generation, one small Springer-Dominick production stroll around the streets of Chicago infected the moral equilibrium of the entire nation. And as we know, when America sneezes, the whole whole catches a cold. Having allowed their forum for bad manners and worse conduct to air in the name of “free speech”, reality TV soon became the norm. The Real Housewives of here and the Celebrity Apprentice of there. Big Brother². The new brand of celebrities there nurtured rose to positions of power in politics and business. Political ideology, principles, the good of the nation: these no longer mattered. What counted in halls of power was money. If you could pay to get into a Florida private golf club, you could pay to affect the policies of a nation. The lies, falsehoods and calumnies once reserved for Chicago TV studios became standard practice throughout society, from Xwitter feeds, where slander masquerades as free speech, to the heart of the Capitol. And though we know it's wrong - a perversion of our values - we lap it up. We watch the circus and vote with our actions. That’s democracy right?

[Image: Trump and Musk fall out]

It is no coincidence that the release of this documentary coincides with the latest Elon Musk Twitter interventions in British politics. X marks the spot. His naked attempts to buy political power are becoming increasingly cringeworthy and more dangerous by the day. His bid to purchase the Reform UK party as his personal weapon of choice. His rather tardy “thoughts” on a serious, but years old, crisis in the North of England. His attacks on the British Prime Minister whose role as Head of Prosecutions in the grooming case was praised at the time³. And most despicably of all, his support of a truly far right provocateur in Tommy Robinson and his abandonment of Nigel Farage on the basis that he wasn’t willing to accept such an extremist in his party. If Musk actually knew anything about Britain, he would realise that Robinson, with his uber negative approval rating⁴, would be an enormous vote loser for Reform. Farage knows that, hence his decision to defy the mogul.

But even if Musk were right on each and every one of these issues, what right does he have to intervene merely on the basis of his avarice-level riches? Why is Substack after Substack article being written on a years old crisis, purely on the basis that an unelected billionaire provoked them into doing so? If it weren’t for his almost unlimited power, these writers wouldn’t have given two hoots about the poor girls of Rotherham. But his Teslaship called and they answered.

It’s Springer all over again. Musk is successful not because of his overrated superhuman powers, but because sufficient numbers of the public are prepared to swallow it. The cries of free speech, justice enablement, giving the public what they want: we’ve heard it all before. It was Jerry! Jerry! then. It’s Musk-Trump now. It’s vileness in place of moral citizenship. It’s vulgarity in the place of mature culture. It’s corrupted money in the place of equal, democratic debate. It’s absent gatekeepers who let celebrities in through the political front door. Chicago is IL and now so are we.

For when all is said and done, it is not Springer or Musk who are corrupt, but us. We are Rome and Rome fell to the barbarians. It's time to learn from history

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1. Reference to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray

2. Let us not forget Piers Morgan who has used the post October 7th reality as entertainment fodder.

3. The following information was retrieved from Ben Cohen of The Banter Newsletter. His article here: https://thebanter.substack.com/p/bari-weisss-shitty-publication.

Michelle Goldberg notes in the Times:

Starmer’s history on this issue is far from shameful. As The Financial Times reports, it was Starmer “who began the prosecutions of the Rochdale grooming gang” during his final year in the prosecutor’s office, “shortly after the scandal in the Greater Manchester town became the first to come to light.” Additionally, The Financial Times said, his office overhauled the way it “investigates sexual abuse to ensure more perpetrators are brought to justice,” making it easier to revisit old cases.

Nazir Afzal (Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West) stated:

“Keir left in 2013, the CPS having gone from being dire at doing sex-abuse cases to having the highest conviction rate in our history. That wouldn’t have been possible without the support, resources and the protection I was given by Keir, at a time when it would have been easier to give up”.

A recommendation for Keir Starmer QC:

4. TLDR News: Why Musk and Farage have (already) fallen out. Contains information on Robinson record of far right activity and his approval ratings.