At Donald Trump’s weekend hatefest in Pennsylvania, when he got to the obligatory mainstream-media-is-the-enemy part, a devoted MAGA follower got so inspired he vaulted over the protective barrier surrounding the media in attendance. Sandwiched between the I-am-your-retribution section and God-chose-me, Trump’s anti-media speech inspired the man to jump up, run toward the press barrier, and sail over it, prepared to wale—physically— on members of the media. Hired security fortunately followed the man and tased him mid-assault.
During the melee, Trump cooed from the pulpit. “Beautiful, that’s beautiful, that’s alright, that’s okay, no, he’s on our side. We get a little itchy, David, don’t we? No, no, he’s on our side.”
Minimizing political violence as “getting a little itchy,” even from Trump’s micro-vocabulary, signaled approval, while “He’s on our side” urged us vs. them lenience for the attacker. As in, it’s normal to physically assault reporters because reporters say mean things about me.
It’s a fool’s game to expect Trump to embrace the First Amendment (or any other tenant of Constitutional law), or the historical underpinnings of protecting the free press. Trump’s inability to hold either nuance or history isn’t surprising, but the mainstream media’s complicity in letting him get away with it is.
Few major media outlets have picked up the story of the assault or Trump’s delight in it, despite videos of the exchange circulating on social media. One outlet even presented the story as an attack on Trump, and used it to remind viewers of Trump’s alleged assassination attempt.
How can Trump defending political violence in real time, as his follower assaults the media in attendance at his rally, not be a story? Is it because the real story is that the media is afraid of Trump, afraid they will lose access, afraid they will lose clicks?
Even after he tried to overthrow the last election through violence, republicans want Trump back in power, and, if anything, the media is helping them. The Washington Post recently issued an editorial comparing the policy platforms of Trump and Kamala Harris. Their conclusion? Harris needs to go deeper on policy details, even though, after campaigning for two years, Trump has never provided policy specifics. Harris has been campaigning for six weeks, and yet she, not he, is expected to deliver intricate proposals, complete with subparagraphs and subparts. (Trump’s promise of tax gifts to the rich, ending environmental protections, and mass deportations are not policies, they are political platitudes, and there are no subparts.)
It’s not just the Washington Post; finer minds than mine have been tracking the media’s Trump bias in headlines and coverage for some time. In attempting to appear politically neutral, major outlets are refusing to cover Trump’s dangerous rhetoric, which has the effect of normalizing it.
Maybe Trump is right and MSM is the enemy of the people after all.
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