Pundits hate being rendered irrelevant. I think that is the primary source of much of their rage against Donald Trump. He has shown that they are out of touch with the historic American nation. Trump doesn’t want their advice. Their stock has never been lower.
A friend says:
Howard Kurtz wrote an article for Fox about how the MSM is just going after Trump. The attacks on Trump from Liberals, Conservatives, the Republican establishment and the media is truly unprecedented. Many of these articles, such as the ones that Rod Dreher posts and comments on at his website are insightful about the basis of Trump’s appeal.
However the way in which Trump is casually labeled a Fascist or Nazi, or racist or white supremacist, but persons who don’t know what those terms mean and are just slinging them around to tar Trump, especially by persons in the media is worth examining.
I think that what is happening is that the reporters, editors, op-ed columnists, pundits both in the main stream media and in their conservative counterparts, believe that they have both a “gatekeeper” function, deciding which news stories to print, and also a public opinion shaping function, through the opinion pieces and more and more through slanted news reporting or advocacy journalism. For those in that position, they have usually risen through the ranks of elite schools, prestigious news outlets and rewarded with the plum job of being the white house reporter or assigned to a political campaign or that most treasured of all, regular columnist. In addition there is the entire stable of op ed contributors.
Trump has shown them to be unable to influence public opinion about him. Any previous candidate would have backed off on positions, apologized, or been run out of the race. This hasn’t happened with Trump. They intuit that if Trump succeeds, their ability to influence politics or policy will be greatly diminished. Every politician is able on some level to manipulate the press, especially if the press needs access to the politician, or if the members of the press’s orientation is similar to the politician. The press also has the power because the politician wants the coverage and wants his message to get out.
What we are witnessing is the collection of journalists and pundits trying to salvage what they believe is their obligation as members of the fourth estate to exercise a check on a politician who won’t come to heel. If Trump is taken down, its back to business as usual for the press. If Trump wins, it is not clear how this will play out.
If, as looks likely at this moment, the presidential nominees of the two major parties of the United States in 2016 will be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we may be witnessing the lowest point in American electoral history. We have never had two candidates of such low stature running for president…
Trump is a real estate tycoon who has lived a life dedicated to making money. A lifelong pursuit of money is not a crime, nor does it mean Trump is as crooked as Hillary Clinton. But he does share her lifelong preoccupation with self.
And he is mean-spirited. His assertion that John McCain, a man tortured for years while a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, was not a war hero because he had been captured after being shot down; his mockery of a reporter’s physical disability; his cruel comments about Carly Fiorina’s looks; his lying about George W. Bush; his lowering of the discourse at every Republican debate in which he participated to the level of a high school food fight; and his constant use of personal insults are some of the examples of this mean-spirited — and immature — nature.
He is also prone to wild exaggeration and outright dishonesty. For example, his claims to have seen bodies flying from the World Trade Center — from his apartment more than 4 miles away — and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks, and to have opposed the invasion of Iraq before the invasion, are either highly improbable or demonstrably false.
