The previous post explored the changing nature of the “October Surprise” phenomenon and how this idea of a single late-breaking event having a profound impact on the election may be passé in a media environment that now mass produces ostensible landmark signature events the way a modern factory produces cookies or cans of soda. The last few weeks have demonstrated this in very clear terms, with daily (sometimes hourly) news items or rumors of forthcoming news items dominating much of the media landscape. While some of these items would genuinely be considered “October Surprises” in the traditional sense (audio recordings of Trump’s former high-level staffers accusing him of being a fascist), the hyperreal nature of social media means that for any one or two “October Surprises” covered in traditional broadcast media, dozens more surprises in some kind of gestation can be found scattered across the darker corners of the digital terrain. Over the past few weeks, unfounded accusations leveled at Tim Walz about abuse toward one of his students briefly gained momentum (including being retweeted by prominent Republicans like Ted Cruz) before being debunked as Russian misinformation.[1] Meanwhile, rumors have been circulating for the last few days about some “bombshell” revelation regarding Donald Trump that “could end his campaign” with no further detail provided.[2]

There is, amid the generation of so much media content, a fraught belief that the arrival of the election and the resolution of the tension with the election of a winner will bring all this spectacular warfare to an end. However, in The Society of the Spectacle, Debord wrote of the way the spectacle takes ordinary consumer products and generates a kind of “epic poem” about the items in question that “no fall of Troy can bring to an end.”[3] Indeed, one of the more absurd elements of American politics is the seemingly endless focus on the dynamics and machinations of the presidential election or other high profile offices with no pause or “off-season.” Because the spectacle is rooted in the drive for endless capitalist accumulation, media companies that need to discover news ways of generating more profitable engagement are always pushing the boundaries of when their audience should begin paying attention to a particular event by boosting the sense of drama that might otherwise be absent around a particular race and looking for an opportunity to take the mundane and imbue it with the profound.

Not all of this, however, occurs through a steady stream of intensity. Debord talks about how the spectacle adjusts to different social and political contexts by making reference to “diffuse” and “concentrated” and “integrated” spectacles.[4] So it is in this case, with the spectacle that surrounds this election going through different forms and phases but never coming to a final end. With this in mind, perhaps one can not only observe how the current spectacle is manifesting itself, but also look for how it might change in the days ahead, as pre-scheduled events shape the type of discourses and images that are produced in the spectacle while these same discourses and images in-turn impact the concrete world.

The October “Surprises”

Right now, with days left before the election, the organized forces for both sides engage in their traditional media combat in print and broadcast while each sides various partisans engage in the dirty war talking place on social media. The objective here is to generate, either through discovery or fraud, a story, narrative or discourse that will deal a paralyzing blow to their opponent. The result is a crescendo of ever-spectacular “pitches” of allegations, accusations, and rumors where the derangement will increase until the day of the election (see the previous post to this one). There will be no restrictions on what can and cannot be alleged with these stories and it is likely they will feature more and more disturbing content seeking to garner the most attention. No form of sexual deviance or felonious behavior will be considered beyond the pale.

The Pageant of Fraud

As the “October Surprises” reach their apotheosis, the spectacle will begin to transition to the electoral and post-election narratives. How this content unfolds will depend on “real” events in the actual election with anything short of a landslide resulting in a new narrative of fraud and dirty tricks. Indeed, there are already indications that Trump will play the “rigged election” card as soon as the outcome appears not to go his way.[5] Even if Trump does appear to be ahead, the nature of the current spectacular terrain will nevertheless invite and encourage a wide range of unfounded claims and conspiracy theories from both the partisans of Harris who will claim Trump and his minions found ways to rig the election and from Trump partisans who will claim there were attempts at fraud by the other side but were foiled and must now be severely punished by the new president. Most, if not all, of the wild allegations and speculations will be false or hyper exaggerations of what otherwise would be routine election inconsistencies. But the spectacle will nevertheless amplify these allegations and conspiracies. The phase of the pageant may, like in 2021, culminate in an apocryphal event where rumor and conspiracy in the digital space motivate mass action in the concrete space. A January 6^th style putsch may not be likely (in part because such ceremonies now will have walls of security to protect them), but it is unlikely this phase of the pageant will have some kind of cliffhanger or climax associated with it.

The Aftermath and the Resetting of the Spectacular Terrain

However this middle phase resolves itself, a brief respite is likely to occur. But this respite should not be understood as any kind of “end” to the pageant. The victors will glory in their triumph while the defeated will lick their wounds. In the meantime, the dark corners of the spectacular terrain where most of today’s overamplified sensationalism originates (with these dark corners including the misinformation operations of foreign states, partisans trolls curating their podcasts and rebuilding bases of subscribers or free agent trolls on social media) will begin to test new packages of alternative histories of the events that just took place, fresh conspiracy theories and the familiar shotgun blast of accusations. Real world events (natural disasters, acts of terrorism and new bouts of international conflict) will also intercede and provide new starting points for fresh narratives of unspeakable crimes and unconscionable degeneracy. As certain of these narratives begin to take hold, agents in government will use them as justifications for the use of state power in the form of hearings, indictments and public trials. (This will be especially true with a Harris win and the inability for Trump to effectively delay the court cases against him. These cases are obviously not conspiracy theories, but plenty of spectacular speculation will nevertheless accompany them). Again, the contours of these struggles will differ based on who will have won and who will have lost. The details of this aftermath likely will be taken up in a future post.

In the present moment, however, the key item to remember is that on the spectacular terrain, exhaustion and attrition do not have the same impacts as they would in the concrete world. Digital resources are much less prone to depletion and thus approaching temporal events (like an election) that might give the impression of an imminent culmination are rather just shifts in the nature of the battle. The larger siege, as Debord points out, never truly ends.

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[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/22/nx-s1-5161376/russia-tim-walz-video-disinformation

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/mark-halperin-says-hes-been-pitched-story-that-could-end-trumps-campaign-1973637

[3] Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle, (Bureau of Public Secrets, 2014), 27.

[4] Ibid., 26-27.

[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/10/15/heres-how-trump-and-his-allies-are-teeing-up-potential-election-loss-challenges/