Yet another reason why the news media is not trusted and dying: running an “analysis”, ie, opinion piece, on the front page which is supposed to be news, which is all about taking shots at Orange Man Bad. But really, really forgets to mention a few things
A President of the People or a President of His People?
In the last couple of weeks, President Trump repeatedly called his enemies “treasonous.†He threatened to punish Democrats by dumping migrants in their districts. He promoted a video tying a Muslim congresswoman to images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.
The message seems clear and so does the audience: more red meat for red-state Americans who have been the foundation of his political enterprise since his against-the-odds campaign for the White House. And it is a reminder that this president governs as none of his modern predecessors did.
The old-fashioned idea that a president, once reaching office, should at least pretend to be the leader of all the people these days seems so, well, old-fashioned. Mr. Trump does not bother with the pretense. He is speaking to his people, not the people. He has become, or so it often seems, the president of the United Base of America.
Mr. Trump travels nearly five times as often to states that were in his column in 2016 as to those that supported Hillary Clinton. He has given several times more interviews to Fox News than to all the other major networks combined. His social media advertising is aimed disproportionately at older Americans who were the superstructure of his victory in the Electoral College in 2016. His messaging is permeated with divisive language that galvanizes core supporters more than it persuades anyone on the fence, much less on the other side.
Last time I checked, Trump has not used the Internal Revenue Service to target political opposition. Remember, that is the scandal that media folks, like those at the NY Times, attempted to avoid discussing for a long time, then decided they would defend Obama and his people rather than investigate when dragged kicking and screaming into covering it. This is the same Obama who slurred tens of millions of American Tea Party followers as “tea baggers.” Obama slurred America and Americans multiple times while overseas. Remember when he called Americans “lazy.” How many times did Obama fundraise and have campaign events (while pretending he was in the state for official business) in NY and California, while avoiding visiting typical Red states, even ones he won, like NC?
For all Trump’s verbal attacks, he hasn’t actually taken actions. The NYT forgets that politics is a dirty, nasty business with a veneer of civility.
As far as attacking Ilhan Omar, you know if it had been a Republican who made the comment, the NYT, in the same city that was attacked on 9/11, would be mercilessly attacking that person, and the entire Republican party by extension. Especially if they had a history of anti-Semitism and working with a Jew and Israel hating group with links to terrorist groups (in this case, CAIR).
But Mr. Trump seems to relish divide-and-conquer politics much more than either of them did and has made little effort to expand his coalition beyond the voters who propelled him to the White House in the first place. While other presidents sought to broaden their public support, Mr. Trump appears to be heading into his re-election campaign sticking with his own tribe.
In other words, he’s sticking to his guns, to the things that got him elected in the first place. He’s not changing his policies. He’s telling people why those policies are good, and why his opponents are wrong in objecting to them. Ronald Reagan did the same (without as many attacks, since there was no social media, and, he was a more political speaking man): he stuck to his policies, rather than moderating. He pulled people into voting for him. And the more the media and Democrats caterwaul, the easier it will be for Trump.
Funny thing is, the Times doesn’t attack Democrats for their divisive talk. Go figure.
