Less than a day after the Washington Post published a story alleging that President Trump shared classified information with Russian officials, some are gaping at conservatives who have sought to downplay the news and defend Trump, dramatically imploring them to put country before party.
Without excusing their decision to downplay the news, it is, at the very least, worth explaining.
Conservatives have been conditioned over decades to distrust negative mainstream media reports about Republican politicians — and rightfully so. Mainstream outlets, for their part, have spent decades slandering conservatives and trafficking in hyperbole about their alleged wrongdoings. In many instances, it appears only to have have gotten worse since this administration began. It also hasn’t been helped by Twitter, which has given many mainstream reporters and editors opportunity and license to show their snarky gut reactions to nearly everything. (Surprise, surprise, they tend to lean pretty hard to the left.)
After Trump won the election in November, Bill Maher reflected on liberals’ habit of issuing apocalyptic predictions about past Republican politicians, arguing the Left “cried wolf” and damaged its credibility.
“I know liberals made a big mistake because we attacked … Bush like he was the end of the world,” Maher said. “And he wasn’t. And Mitt Romney we attacked that way. I gave Obama a million dollars because I was so afraid of Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney wouldn’t have changed my life that much or yours. Or John McCain. They were honorable men who we disagreed with and we should have kept it that way.”
“So we cried wolf and that was wrong,” he continued. “But this is real. This is going to be way different.”
Maher was talking specifically about attacks from liberals. But extend that critique to the mainstream media, recalling how outlets such as the Washington Post used very flimsy premises and fact patterns to launch brutal and usually not even close to fair attacks on earlier Republicans.
Remember when the New York Times published a story based on the accounts of anonymous sources falsely claiming John McCain was having an affair? Or Dan Rather’s reporting about George W. Bush’s military service, based on documents that were too good to check? Or the Washington Post’s narrative about Mitt Romney seeking success in business at the risk of hurting American workers? During the Trump presidency alone, my colleague Becket Adams has compiled an entire database of bad reporting from the mainstream media.
Again, that is not to excuse conservative hesitance to accept ostensibly damaging reports, but to explain it amid accusations that conservatives are all are mindlessly defending the president because he’s a Republican.
Certainly, there are some who seem inclined to defend him at all costs, but there is a long history behind conservatives’ skepticism of reports in mainstream media outlets. That context is necessary to understanding the movement’s immediate hesitance to trust before verifying.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
