President Trump decides the news cycle of the day.
You, Twitter addicts and media scolds, are letting him do it.
Like a bullfighter goading the press into charging at him with even more alacrity than his bait to get them, Trump bets on the media’s incessant hunger for his outrageousness surpassing the extent of his own desire for sycophancy. So, he tweets out some declaration of right-wing victimhood littered with a dog whistle or two, and like clockwork, the media embarks on a 24-hour news cycle obsessing over a remark that should prove anything but extraordinary coming from him.
Shot:
So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2019
Chaser:
No, a lynching is what you advocated for in the case of the Central Park Five. You wanted those young minority boys to be murdered when it turned out they were innocent. You are textbook definition of a racist. Democrats are way too soft on you, you should already be in prison. https://t.co/FaS3cevdUk
— Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) October 22, 2019
“A lynching” https://t.co/WFrllVxHk9
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 22, 2019
Only Trump would use the word “lynching”… https://t.co/10tEJqLU67
— Katie Phang (@KatiePhang) October 22, 2019
Even assuming that Trump has not an iota of racial animus in his heart, you can bet every penny you own that he specifically deployed that word knowing its hundred-year history of racial connotations, and he did it just to get this exact media reaction.
Rather than focus on the slaughter of the Kurds in Syria, bloodshed that rests solely on his hands, or Trump’s increasing incompetence fueling the impeachment fervor, cable news is now salivating over a bad tweet that’s par for the course for the president.
And worse, Republicans are tripping over themselves to defend it.
Sen. Tim Scott said he “wouldn’t use” the term but largely supported Trump’s broader frustrations.
“This is the political version of a death row trial. The president is up in arms in anger about it … He’s putting his political life on trial. His comments reflect it”
— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) October 22, 2019
WH spokesman Hogan Gidley on the president’s Tweet about “lynching:” “The president’s not comparing what’s happened to him to one of the country’s darkest moments.” pic.twitter.com/m4SgKqwMxC
— Eamon Javers (@EamonJavers) October 22, 2019
The GOP is hardly eager to defend Trump’s probable corruption with Ukraine, so if you’re a megalomaniac wanting your supposed sycophants to step in line, what better way than to put out a gross tweet, get an overblown news cycle, and then watch the party defend you in public?
This playbook has remained the same for the past four years, and yet the media continues to fall for it. If their overreach and over coverage catapults Trump to a second term, they’ll deserve it. If Republicans lose not just the currently insignificant White House but the pivotal power of the Senate because they debased themselves for a president who prioritized his own ego above all else, they’ll have earned it just as well. The only one who wins is Trump.
