TEG’s Group Editor Chad Merchant delves into the recent political developments in America and the modern-day media machine.

I’m not sure if this is empirically valid, but my guess is that expats are in many ways a microcosm of the broader local population, embodying varying interests, different ethnicities and cultures, and a wide range of strengths and weaknesses.

So if it’s true that only a small subset of the whole population has an above-average interest in politics, it’s likely the case in the expat community, too. Some follow it intently, some pay cursory attention only, and many don’t really notice or concern themselves with it.

But lately, the political scene in Malaysia has defied even those with no keen interest in politics to simply not pay attention. My own awareness of Malaysian politics had lain quite dormant for the initial few years of my stay here, but that has changed in the last two years. In talking to other expats, it’s impossible to find anyone who’s ignorant of the scandals and political dramas playing out here, and even expats here on short-term working assignments are happy to weigh in with their opinions.

As expats, we can’t get involved in Malaysian politics, but that doesn’t mean we’re oblivious to what’s going on. The twists and turns in the still-evolving 1MDB saga are so complex, with parts of it just defying belief, that if you wrote this whole thing up as a screenplay and tried to peddle it to Hollywood studios, they’d tell you it was too fanciful, that it just strained credulity too much – even for a movie. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

Meanwhile, in a similar vein, the political posturing erupting in my home country – the United States – has defied all convention, baffling and frustrating both political insiders and the average man on the street.

I used to take solace in the relative normalcy of politics there when the scene in Malaysia just became too outrageous. Now? Even that has been turned on its head. And as disappointing and dispiriting as the political scene has grown in Malaysia over the past year, what’s happening in American politics will undoubtedly have greater consequences for the world.

Again and again, I am asked by both locals and other expats, “What is going on in your country? Are Americans seriously going to elect Donald Trump as president?” Certainly nobody thought Mr Trump would be this far ahead in the Republican primaries, and while I truly do not think he can win the general election in November, this is an American election cycle with no historic precedent, so the usual rules don’t seem to apply.

For those unfamiliar with American elections, it’s important to note that this is just the primary season, and despite getting an inordinate amount of media coverage, Mr Trump is in fact not yet running for president, but rather running to become the Republican nominee.

But how this has happened – how a openly lying, racist, misogynistic xenophobe with a penchant for crass comments and rampant bullying has become the Republican front-runner much to the dismay of the Republican Party itself – is rather easy to explain.

Two things have contributed greatly to this. First, the rise of the 24-hour news cycle, which has itself been broadly characterized as the downfall of real journalism. Not that long ago, journalists spent serious time on stories, they dug deep, they researched, they exposed lies, they found reliable sources, they fact-checked. And by the time their story was broadcast, it was a solid piece of real journalism.

Then during the Gulf War in the early ’90s, CNN differentiated itself by reporting in non-stop real time. The scrolling text so commonly seen on newscasts now – “the crawl” – was introduced. In time, more TV networks did the same, and as they battled for market share (and as networks became increasingly corporate-owned, with shareholders demanding bigger profits), the competition became fiercer.

In the race to be first, and in the race to have the highest ratings, journalistic standards declined, and today, you have barely edited, loosely fact-checked stories thrown in your face just as fast as they can jumble them together.

The second contributor is a direct result of the first: for the last decade (or more), many conservative Americans have been fed a steady diet of contrived anger and fear, courtesy of this 24-hour media machine. Political posturing has become more and more aggressive, and attention spans have been driven downward.

Thoughtful analysis, considered reasoning, measured debate – none of this is rewarded. Instead, flashy headlines, bumper sticker slogans, and scarcely researched talking points consume the news. And since these networks have hours and hours of airtime to fill, they do so with talk shows and opinion pieces – more angry people shouting and sermonizing.

The internet, with its many news sites and comments forums, further fuels the fire. The end result – predictably – is an opportunist like Mr Trump who has simply been in the right place and the right time to be the beneficiary of all this manufactured anger and discontent.

How will it resolve itself? Nobody knows yet. Many pundits and analysts have openly wondered if we are witnessing the death of America’s Republican Party. If so, what will rise from its ashes? We can only hope that as the general election draws nigh, more sensible voters will prevail and “trump” the swell of irrational anger.