The U.S. media are still flummoxed by the question of how to cover Donald Trump’s actions, even a full year after his ejection from the Oval Office. That ambivalence is understandable; never before in the history of this country has someone so thoroughly brazen and insouciant in his raw criminality occupied a position now enjoyed by Trump, whose every utterance now smacks of outright, seditious intent. Trump is indeed an anomaly they have never dealt with, with his millions of supporters comprising an imposing swath of the American electorate.
There seems to be a consensus among major media outlets that Trump continues to represent a lethal threat to our democracy, but the magnitude of that threat is seen as blunted by the fact that Trump is out of office and therefore unable to inflict immediate harm. So rather than risk telling Americans the truth about what is actually occurring because of this man, they have deliberately ceded that responsibility, rationalizing that “amplifying” Trump’s words will only provide him with more of the attention he obviously craves (many, no doubt, harboring the hope that the country’s institutions will find a way to permanently remove him from the public sphere).
But when a former president—previously impeached for deliberately inciting a mob of violent, white supremacist thugs to ransack the U.S. Capitol—now (in essence) orders his followers to commit further violence should he be investigated or prosecuted for his criminal activities, that is news that the American people need to hear, and hear loudly, whether they want to or not. The real implications of that should be front-page, real-time fodder, not something relegated to the Editorial and Op-Ed section where it will mostly be read and digested by those who already have an opinion, or left for MSNBC to take it up as news “analysis.” It should be a story blared out on the evening news by ABC, NBC, and CBS. It should be the lead story from the AP, Reuters, and other services where local newscasts and newspapers derive much of their content, on NPR and regional news radio.
The speech that Trump delivered in Conroe, Texas, on Saturday to thousands of his braying, rabid supporters on was, in fact, as described by Will Bunch for the Philadelphia Inquirer, “one of the most incendiary and most dangerous speeches in America’s 246-year history.” It was probably more venal, corrupt, and self-serving as anything that has ever come out of Trump’s mouth, because it directed his mob of supporters at our justice system and law enforcement, specifically those involved in investigating his personal criminal activity.
As Bunch notes:
It included an appeal for all-out mayhem in the streets to thwart the U.S. justice system and prevent Trump from going to jail, as the vise tightens from overlapping criminal probes in multiple jurisdictions. And it also featured a stunning campaign promise — that Trump would look to abuse the power of the presidency to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6 insurrection.
But initially, it barely caused a ripple on the nightly news. Most outlets focused solely on Trump’s offer to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists and buried or ignored the rest of his spew, including his insidious solicitation of violence, which was even more incendiary. As Bunch observes, while the rally was actually occurring, pro-Trump OANN stood at the ready, eager to lap up whatever Trump dished out, while “more mainstream outlets like CNN were busy obsessing on the possible retirement of football’s Tom Brady, having decided—wisely—after Jan. 6 not to cover Trump’s words live, but to only revisit his rallies if he actually makes any news.” [Note: CNN.com covered the speech the next morning, emphasizing Trump’s offer to pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists].
Therein lies the problem. The impetus to minimize Trump’s poisonous rhetoric makes sense. But he’s playing solely to his base at this point, and his intent here is to stoke them into violence on his behalf. The comforting assumption that by choosing to not give Trump a “voice” will lessen the toxic effect he has on the country ignores the reality that his hardcore base no longer occupies the same universe most media conglomerates take for granted. They don’t read the New York Times or the Washington Post. They don’t watch CNN. His exhortations to those supporters comes through, clear and unfiltered, in social media and the right-wing “news” sites that feed it. Then they are spread and absorbed by those supporters until they become, by default, official doctrine for the Republican party which races like a scared rabbit to seize upon his every word, to ensure that there is no deviation from whatever whim he spews on a daily basis. The implications of that inconvenient reality when dealing with someone like Trump, who now actively encourages his followers “under the radar” to commit violence in furtherance of his goals, knowing he can completely bypass the media’s standard forms, apparently haven’t sunken in yet for most newsrooms. They need to, and soon.
Because for the rest of us—Democrats, including those few truly independent and swing voters who will likely help determine whether Trump and his foul minions ever again despoil the Executive Branch—it would be really useful to be prepared when our streets in 2024 are suddenly filled with gun-waving Nazis driving their pick up trucks and threatening us. It would be helpful for Americans to understand exactly why volunteering to help at the polls is now a recipe for death threats, or why Democratic votes are now suddenly, routinely subject to being thrown out or otherwise challenged on wholly specious grounds. It would be helpful for Americans to know exactly why a pipe bomb was found at the home of our state representative, a judge, or under someone’s car for displaying a Biden sign. Or why some unbalanced MAGA fanatic waved a pistol in our face at a school board meeting because he believes all Democrats are the spawn of Satan and undermining God’s plan for Trump’s triumphant return. Knowing who and what is responsible for these things helps efforts to understand them, prepare for them, and mobilize against them.
Josh Marshall, writing for TalkingPointsMemo, described this reluctance on the part of traditional news media to face the reality of what is occurring while they studiously ignore Trump’s increasingly violent rhetoric:
It’s become doctrine for many right-thinking people that people shouldn’t “amplify” what Trump is saying. That only does his work for him, we’re told. This is the logic that got him booted off social media. But … this state of affairs … has also proved almost the best of all possible worlds for him. Trump’s supporters hear his message loud and clear: through NewsMax, OANN, talk radio, Facebook and to a significant degree on Fox News. But for the rest of the political world it’s muffled. So the horror and craziness of Trumpism recedes from public consciousness while people are focused on the day to day imperfection of the Biden presidency.
This hasn’t made Trump any weaker. His hold over the institutional and electoral GOP has only intensified since leaving office. The very small number of elected officials who refused to support the Big Lie have mostly been drummed out of the party. Trump’s Big Lie propaganda has become unassailable in heavily state-legislative-gerrymandered states where it will matter most. In short, the “don’t amplify” doctrine has allowed Trump to speak freely to his supporters and intensify his hold over the GOP, while keeping the incendiary messages that mobilize a majority of the country against him largely off mainstream airwaves.
The Washington Post, for example, covered the most inflammatory, violence-stoking statements of Trump’s Texas speech with the headline: “Trump’s Texas trip illustrates his upsides and downsides for Republicans and their midterm hopes.”
Just “upsides and downsides” for Republicans (or in the case of the New York Times’ coverage of the speech, as pointed out by Eric Kleefeld for Media Matters, merely a demonstration of supposed internal Republican infighting and divisions about “messaging”). Not, “Trump calls for violent protests by followers if he is prosecuted,” or anything horrific that might imply. No recognition that a huge segment of his support is comprised of the same people who trashed the U.S. Capitol, attempted to kill members of Congress, and violently attacked law enforcement when it got in their way.
There’s no sense that these are the same people who regularly intimidate elected officials with death threats, come armed and ready to shoot up state capitals, plan to kidnap and execute state governors, fly Nazi and Confederate flags, and spit hatred at Jews and people of color in the name of white supremacy. No acknowledgment that these are the very same people Trump wants to turn loose on American society if he’s not treated like he’s above the law; turned loose not to peacefully “protest” or exercise their right to free speech, but to intimidate, attack and, if necessary, kill other Americans.
Bunch hopes his media colleagues will wake up to that reality before it’s too late:
It’s impossible for me to understate or downplay the importance of this moment, and I hope that my colleagues in the media — who too often over the last year have craved or even pretended about a return to the politics of “normal,” when we are nowhere near normal — will wake up and see this. Of course, Biden’s presidency deserves our full scrutiny, with praise for what’s gone right (an economic boom) and criticism for what’s gone wrong (broken promises on climate and student debt). But while Biden is seeking to restore democratic norms, a shadow ex-president — unpunished so far for his role in an attempted coup on Jan. 6 — is rebuilding a cult-like movement in the heartland of America, with all the personal grievance and appeals to Brownshirts-style violence that marked the lowest moments of the 20th century.
This is no longer a question of “amplifying” Trump. It’s a question of how to deal head-on with the ascendance of a violent, fascistic movement of ignorant, angry, and dangerous Americans beholden to one man, with one of our two political parties already fully in thrall to his bidding. The fact that this hasn’t happened before in American history seems to have paralyzed the media response; they know that by acknowledging the awful reality they must in the final analysis risk alienating millions of Americans. They know that this forces them to choose a side, something they’re instinctively trained to never, ever do.
But they’re also in business to tell the truth, no matter how ugly or inconvenient or “polarizing” that truth is. That’s their job, and if they can’t do it, they might as well admit they’re no better than Fox News. Trump is now spewing the type of rhetoric that gets people killed, and he’s not being called on it. The media need to internalize the plain fact that he means exactly what he says, that our institutions will not save us, and there cannot be any return to normality until Trump and Trumpism are finally disposed of. Those in the media who allowed him and it to fester and metastasize will bear the responsibility for whatever horrors to this nation their forbearance and complacency, however unintended, helped to bring about.