It’s disturbing, dangerous, and at times surreal that the president of the United States would act in such a way that produces so much harm for the country he's sworn to protect. It's unparalleled in American history, just like it's disturbing and dangerous that Trump doesn't want to protect U.S. elections from foreign interference in 2020. Yet that's all the more reason the press needs to abandon the old tools, have the courage to be aggressively accurate, and not let Trump's bullying keep journalists from properly informing the public about the stunning developments unfolding in front of our eyes.
Today, there's a direct connection between the press (led by the New York Times ) endlessly fawning over Trump's far-right supporters, the ones who wallow in his racist attacks, and depicting them as nothing more than forgotten, hardworking Americans. Between the refusal to call Trump a racist when he acts that way and the refusal to now steadfastly explain that he's likely a driving force in the explosion of white nationalist violence in America, the press has largely failed.
Last week, I suggested Trump's reelection strategy is to basically spark a rhetorical race war. The question now is if the war has already moved beyond being rhetorical. The bloody, racist rampage that unfolded in El Paso over the weekend, just minutes from the Mexico border, was sparked by a white gunman, whose manifesto explicitly cited Trump's "invasion" rhetoric about migrants as his motivation to kill as many brown-skinned people as possible, as he emptied his AK-47 inside a shell-shocked Walmart. The El Paso shooter is unquestionably a terrorist who represents a new generation of sleeper cells in that country: radical gunmen who worship an ideology of hate. It's an ideology that's often endorsed by the White House and the larger Republican Party.
The Texas rampage is just the latest in a deadly succession of race-hating, white nationalist white men launching mass murders. "The [Trump] rhetoric is absolutely resonating and connecting with white supremacist and white nationalist groups, who are over the moon to hear him use such language," stresses researcher Robert McKenzie. Yet too many journalists shy away from making that crucial point.
On Monday, the Wall Street Journal's front-page story on the urgent threat posed by white nationalists barely mentioned Trump's racist rhetoric, and when it did it was mentioned only in the context that Democrats were faulting Trump's speech for stoking violence. Remember, these are often the same journalists who (falsely) label Trump a "populist" based on his rhetoric. Yet they refuse to label him a "racist" based on rhetoric about sending congresswomen of color "back" to where they came from.
Indeed, when Trump first tweeted out his clearly racist taunts against the Democratic congresswomen, the Times didn't label them as such. Instead, the paper hid behind Democrats, reporting that they thought the attacks were racist. And that was the media norm at the time. "Democrats immediately denounced the comments as racist," the Journal noted. And from USA Today: "President Donald Trump's opponents accused him of xenophobia and racism on Sunday."
Racism isn't a Both Sides issue, where journalists type up allegations from Democrats and Republicans, pretend they can't tell who's right, and leave it for news consumers to decide. Calling out racism is a moral imperative and by refusing to hold Trump accountable, the press is failing that task.
Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.
This post was written and reported through our Daily Kos freelance program.
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