Musk, Trump, and the Netflixification of Democracy

The Spectacle State

In 2023, the United Kingdom offered the world a masterclass in political farce. The once-formidable image of Westminster melted into absurdity as prime ministers cycled through Downing Street like interns on work experience. One resigned over lettuce memes. Another never seemed to arrive fully. The media didn’t cover politics—it performed it, and millions watched, not out of civic duty, but because it rivalled Netflix.

Fast-forward to 2025: Britain’s circus tent has simply expanded to include the rest of the Western world. Its new headliners? Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Two titans of ego, locked in a bitter exchange of insults and policy threats over a bill so bloated and self-serving it might as well have been ghost-written by Wall Street. The bill—formally pitched as a tech-industrial stimulus package—was in reality a patchwork of deregulations, tax shields, and subsidy carve-outs tailored for mega-corporations under the guise of “innovation.”

What began as closed-door lobbying quickly erupted into a digital slugfest. Trump accused Musk of being a “globalist leech” exploiting America, while Musk fired back labelling Trump a “tech-illiterate relic” blocking progress. News cycles looped their spats, memes flooded timelines, and Capitol Hill turned into a media colosseum. The actual content of the bill? Largely ignored. Public welfare? Forgotten. Once again, policy became pretext—and the spotlight remained squarely on personalities rather than people.

But this is not politics. This is performance. A fusion of tabloid theatre, gladiator bloodsport, and reality-TV narcissism. And make no mistake: this is what governs the Western world today.

The Death of Governance, the Rise of Personality

Liberal democracies once “prided themselves on institutions”—parliaments, courts, civil services—that stood above individuals. In theory, elected officials were stewards of public trust, bound by constitutional limits and norms of conduct. But in the twenty-first century, a new kind of political actor has emerged: the influencer-statesman. These figures do not rise on the back of party platforms or policy expertise. They ascend through spectacle, driven by social media followings, tabloid notoriety, and a gift for dominating the 24-hour news cycle.

The result is what might be called the spectacle state. In such a system, governance is increasingly performative. Legislative debate is less about shaping law than about scoring viral moments. Accountability is replaced by audience engagement. Leaders are not expected to solve problems; they are expected to trend.

This has profound consequences for public life. Voters become viewers. Institutions are weakened. Public trust collapses. And while attention is diverted to political theatre, real crises fester: inequality, climate change, housing shortages, and health system failures.

How Did It Get To This?

This decay did not happen overnight. It is the result of a long, bitter battle between two competing visions of politics: the principled and the materialist.

The principled tradition saw politics as a “moral responsibility”—a covenant with the people, grounded in ideas of justice, stewardship, and humility. Think of post-war Europe, where social democrats and conservatives alike worked to build welfare states and uphold civil liberties. Politics was often slow, procedural, and imperfect, but it still assumed that leadership came with ethical restraint.

But then came the materialists—those who saw politics not as service, but as a stage. Beginning in the late 20th century, figures like Ronald Reagan and Silvio Berlusconi pioneered the merging of media celebrity with political power. They replaced substance with style, dialogue with slogans, and moral authority with market logic. What mattered was not the depth of a policy, but the breadth of its applause.

This model proved contagious. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Hollywood action star, became governor of California. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian who once played a fictional president on television, was elected as Ukraine’s real one. In Latin America, entertainers and social media influencers have increasingly taken seats in parliament. The line between politics and performance has all but disappeared, with public office now seen as a logical next act in an already-public career. In this world, campaigning becomes content, and leadership becomes a livestream.

The triumph of the materialist model was complete with the rise of Trump, whose very presence in politics was a celebration of ego over ethics. But the groundwork was laid over decades: deregulated media, corporatised political parties, privatised civic life. The public sphere became a marketplace, and the politician became its most shameless salesman.

When the Rulers Forget the Ruled

Meanwhile, outside the ring, the cost of living climbs. Mental health crises spike. Wages stagnate. The average person works more hours for less. Children grow up in food insecurity while their leaders trade barbs about electric vehicles and tax loopholes.

Where in this theatre is the concern for the common man? Where is the urgency for the elderly woman choosing between medicine and heating? For the war-scarred refugee languishing in asylum limbo? For the working-class family crushed under inflation.

Nowhere. Because the system is not built to care—it is built to distract.

And when distraction rules, justice dies quietly in the wings.

The Politics of Vanity

The Western world has exported this political model globally—wherever it touches, systems of substance are gutted and replaced by spectacle. Where there should be policy, there is pettiness. Where there should be principle, there is personality.

Musk and Trump’s feud is just the latest instalment in a long-running drama: ego versus ego, with the public reduced to popcorn-eating bystanders. The tragedy is not just that this is what politics has become. The tragedy is that it is accepted as normal.

Politics: A Dirty Word in Liberal Democracies

In today’s liberal democracies, “politics” has become a dirty word, synonymous not with principled governance but with spectacle and performance. What was once a process grounded in debate, accountability, and service has been hollowed out and replaced by a ceaseless show, where style overwhelms substance, and personalities overshadow policies.

Western democracies have failed spectacularly, both at home and abroad. Domestically, citizens grapple with growing inequality, housing crises, and overstretched healthcare systems while political elites squabble over trivial distractions. Internationally, these same democracies export chaos under the guise of promoting freedom—intervening in nations like Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan, leaving devastation in their wake. The promises of democracy abroad have too often translated into occupation, instability, and suffering.

Yet despite these failures, one thing remains certain: the people—both within these democracies and in those countries caught in their geopolitical ambitions—are coerced or pressured into accepting the legitimacy of a political system that offers no real justice or representation. They are forced to play the part of spectators, to consume the drama without any genuine voice or stake in decisions that govern their lives.

For the common man, this system is a cage disguised as a stage. The urgent need is to seek governance that unfolds away from the spotlight—beyond the curtain—where decisions are made with integrity, accountability, and genuine concern for the public good, rather than for applause or ratings. True leadership happens not in the glare of cameras and social media frenzy, but in sober deliberation, disciplined stewardship, and humility before the people served.

The Path Forward

The central question facing Western democracies is whether they can ever resurface. This cannot be achieved through cosmetic reforms or better messaging. It will require a reassertion of principle over personality, of structure over spontaneity, of substance over self-interest.

It demands a return to the idea that governance is not entertainment but an obligation. That power is not a personal brand, but a trust held on behalf of the people. That public office is not a platform for self-promotion, but a station for service, discipline, and restraint. All these qualities are far gone from the ruling of the world, and to regain them would be impossible for the materialist.

Until then, the politics of vanity will persist. The billionaire feuds will continue. And the common citizen—no longer a participant, but a passive consumer—will suffer the consequences.

Dominance, after all, is not just about who rules. It is about how—and why. And in the West today, the answer is increasingly unclear.

An Alternative to the Spectacle

Critics may argue that politics has always been messy—that theatricality and ambition are human constants. But this ignores the fact that not all systems tolerate or reward spectacle equally. For all its turbulent history, one may rightly scrutinise the Islamic political tradition, but there is one undeniable difference: its leaders were not performers, and their disagreements were not part of the front-page gazette.

In the Islamic governance model, particularly under the Ottomans, political authority was not built on charisma or clickbait, but on structure, law, and accountability before God. Leadership was not about dominating a news cycle, but safeguarding a mizan (balance) between power and justice.

When Sultan Abdul Hamid II ruled the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century, he did so under immense internal and external pressure. While European newspapers painted him as a despot, within the realm, he was known for his refusal to compromise on principles. When offered vast sums by Theodor Herzl to establish a Zionist settlement in Palestine, Abdul Hamid rejected the offer outright, stating that the land was not his to sell—it belonged to the ummah and was entrusted to him by Allah.

His decision was not made for applause or attention. It was not choreographed for public approval. It was rooted in responsibility and the weight of amanah (trust). His leadership did not rely on theatrics, slogans, or manufactured popularity—it rested on the Islamic conception of stewardship: that a ruler is answerable not to the crowd, but to the Creator.

This spirit permeated the wider Ottoman system. One powerful example was the Divan—an executive council that included military commanders, jurists, and administrative officials. Even the Grand Vizier, the Sultan’s chief minister, was subject to scrutiny and removal if found neglecting duties or violating Islamic principles. Deliberations were held behind closed doors, guided by sharia and administrative law, not shaped by optics or populism. Disagreements between officials were resolved within these structured forums—not splashed across public pulpits or press releases. Governance took place behind curtains, not beneath the glare of stage lights.

Where today’s politics rewards provocation and self-promotion, the Islamic tradition emphasised restraint. The Caliph was expected to be dignified, measured, and concealed from unnecessary public display—not to evade responsibility, but to avoid cultivating vanity. His legitimacy stemmed not from how loudly he ruled, but how justly he did.

A System Rooted in Restraint

At its core, the Islamic system of governance viewed power as a test, not a trophy. From the first Caliph Abu Bakr’s trembling acceptance of leadership to Umar ibn Abdul Aziz’s refusal to allow his family to exploit state wealth, the early ethos of Islamic rule was soaked in accountability—not to audiences, but to Allah.

That difference matters. It builds societies where the measure of a leader is not how loud he speaks, but how fairly he rules. Where politics is not theatre, but testimony.

If the West is trapped in a theatre of illusion—where politics is performance and leadership is vanity—then no amount of reform, regulation, or algorithmic tweaking will save it. A system built on spectacle cannot simply be refined; it must be replaced.

Islam offers not just an alternative, but a correction. A political tradition where power was not wielded for self-promotion, but for public service. Where rulers stood accountable before the people and restrained by divine law—not emboldened by polls or trending hashtags. Where governance took place in consultation and council, not through soundbites or staged outrage. It was a system that, despite its human flaws, treated leadership as amanah (a sacred trust), not entertainment.

The modern world is not suffering from a lack of politics—it suffers from a lack of principled governance. Liberal democracies have failed both at home and abroad. They have produced wealth without justice, elections without accountability, and freedom without morality.

The Islamic system, with its foundation in justice, restraint, and responsibility, is not a relic—it is a model whose relevance is growing by the day.

Until the world is ready to abandon the spotlight and return to substance, the curtain will remain open. The performers will continue their act.
And justice will remain—unseen, and unheard—behind the scenes.