Media and the Reproduction of the American Man as a Universal Reference

In the midst of the sharp overlap between the pathways of the American-Israeli war on Iran, an media pattern emerges that deserves deconstruction, not merely as an editorial choice, but as part of a broader structure for producing political meaning and reshaping consciousness. The intense presence of statements from the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and generally from White House officials, especially on platforms like Al Jazeera, cannot be read as an innocent response to what is known as "news value," but rather as a clear manifestation of the mechanisms of reproducing symbolic dominance within the global media space. This pattern does not merely transmit American political discourse; it intensifies it, sometimes strips it of its context, and re-presents it as a cosmic event, even when it is fundamentally a declarative or repetitive discourse that does not inherently carry qualitative transformations or is often self-evident.

What is actually happening is a transition from a coverage logic to a logic of discursive centralization, where a single political actor is re-established as a permanent interpretive reference for the international system. This stabilization operates more at the level of the audience and also reflects back on the actor, producing a state of internalized hegemony, whereby the conviction in the ability to control and direct becomes part of the cognitive structure of the discourse itself. In this context, Trump emerges not merely as the head of a state, but as an intensified embodiment of a broader system that can be described as the white imperial self, which sees itself as a cosmic actor entitled to intervene, reorder priorities, and direct political and military pathways beyond its sovereign borders.

This conviction, of course, does not arise from a vacuum, but it is also not limited to the material or economic power of the United States. It is true that the post-World War II order established an international structure that granted Washington an advanced position, but the persistence of this feeling of superiority today primarily feeds on the political economy of the media, where intensive and repetitive coverage becomes a tool for producing a perceptual reality that amplifies the centrality of this actor. Conversely, the presence of powers like China and Russia, despite having tools of hard power, has not translated into the same pattern of inflated discursive presence, reaffirming that the issue is not only about the balance of power but also about the mechanisms of its representation and media recycling.

Within this framework, it becomes commonplace for Donald Trump to speak in a language that transcends the boundaries of diplomacy to resemble a trans-sovereign command discourse, whether in his dealings with allies within NATO, or in his attempts to summon international and regional powers to intervene in specific military pathways, or in presenting himself as an actual coordinator for the use of force at the level of the entire international system, such as sending their warships to the Strait of Hormuz or directing European air forces towards Iranian skies or even when he previously announced his desire to purchase Greenland, or when he attacked the Spanish president for rejecting an increase in military spending from Spanish GDP, accompanied by threats of tariff punishment against Spain for not complying with Trump’s military orders. This discourse, when rebroadcast and intensified, is not read as a claim or exaggeration, but is reframed as a potential truth, which enhances the illusion of the ability to move global military structures in accordance with the will of a single actor.

The most dangerous aspect of this context is what can be termed soft political deification, where the political actor becomes an almost absolute reference not due to the content of what they say, but due to the density of their presence. Here, the boundaries between what is actual and what is imagined dissolve, and the impact of a statement results from its repetition rather than its content. Any sentence, no matter how self-evident or empty, is reframed within a dramatic framework that amplifies its significance, granting it a weight that transcends its reality. In this sense, political discourse becomes raw material for a continuous amplification process.

However, this hegemonic construction is not as solid as it seems. The experiences in which this discourse has been met with indifference or mockery reveal its structural fragility. When Trump sought to purchase Greenland, Denmark did not treat the proposal as a reality but as a statement that could be deconstructed and rejected without engaging in its amplification, and it firmly and explicitly rejected it by stating, "Greenland is not for sale, and we are not for sale," and even publicly mocked and ridiculed Trump personally. This form of discursive resistance, based on stripping the statement of its symbolic legitimacy rather than engaging with it on its own terms, led to its effect being drained and removed from the realm of serious circulation.

Conversely, when the same discourse is welcomed in other contexts as an exceptional event and is granted excessive attention, it is reinserted into the production cycle of hegemony. Here, the power lies not in the statement itself, but in the media investment in its circulation and in the collective readiness to receive it as a decisive signal. In this way, continuous following transforms into a sort of indirect engagement in reproducing the same structure that is supposedly being critiqued, resulting in a complex system of attention governance, where hegemony is not only imposed through military or economic tools but also by controlling what we should see, how often we see it, and how we reinterpret it. In this system, ignoring the statement itself becomes a political act, as it breaks away from the logic of amplification and restores things to their actual size. As for the continuation of consuming this discourse as the center of the world, this is what gives it the power to appear as an irreplaceable force, positioning the white American man as the king of the world and the ultimate decision-maker.