For all of his vices, the media have been infatuated with President Trump for the last four years. Now, he is becoming like the ex-boyfriend they can’t refrain from stalking.
Trump, for all intents and purposes, is a media creation. They loved him when they gave him The Apprentice. They hated him later. He was their lovable Home Alone New York City capitalist until it came to a political referendum on their own ways.
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Trump grew to embody and represent what the Left resents most of all about modern conservatism — it is unyielding to political correctness. Saturday Night Live had at it. Other late-night programs and hosts did too. They continue to. Trump became the prime target of everything and anything the Democrats tended intrinsically to despise about the Republican Party.
Now, with Trump on his way out come January, CNN’s Don Lemon for once gave it straight to the public: “Give us a while here in the news media because we’ve got to, you know, learn how to quit the other person. It’s like a breakup. We’ve got to get the other president out of our phone contacts.”
Bravo. Lemon is spot-on here. If you turned on the television at any point in the last four years, you witnessed a fixation over a mean orange man. With Joe Biden on the brink of the presidency, the legacy media are having a hard time reconciling the fact that they will lack a central figure upon whom to pin all their compulsive anger. Trump’s populist approach appealed to leftist academia as well, bolstering their smug belief that they are more intellectually courageous and more in possession of highbrow virtue than the rest of us.
For someone the Left hates so much, it is interesting how much they speak about Trump. It never ends. For one, the media recognizes the economic benefit that comes from saying ‘Donald Trump’ a million times because it makes the hungry viewer turn the volume up. But you would think the Left would rather discuss their own politicians and policy goals and forget the dufus they cannot stand. They do not, for Biden was chosen only reluctantly. He isn’t exactly the sexy pick for president they would have desired.
The media are out of touch with half of the public. They have been for some time. And as Ben Shapiro has put it, “They don’t hate you because they hate Trump. They hate Trump because they hate you.” The Left may, in fact, hate Trump with a scorching passion, but their disdain for the people that voted for him is just as strong.
Now, Trump is on his way out. Lemon and the others will have to adjust their hazardous game plan. And they are finding it quite difficult to do so. By the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, Democrats had become so complacent that it was unthinkable that the other half of the country’s views or candidate should prevail. This not only helps explain their rage, but it also explains the slumber into which the media will now descend once again.
Trump may have provided a lifeline to cable news, but viewers are flocking from it in the millions. More and more every day, the news media are looking like perpetual campaign staffers rather than legitimate sources of factual information.
Gabe Kaminsky is a student at the University of Pittsburgh.
