Posted on 07/27/2016 5:30:39 AM PDT by randita
Media Have a ‘Cry Wolf’ Problem with Trump
Decades of smearing decent Republican candidates leaves them without credibility on Trump’s demagoguery.
By Jonah Goldberg — July 27, 2016
Dear Mainstream Media and Democrats: It’s your turn. Now that Donald Trump has been formally nominated, the formal responsibility to stop him passes from the Right to the Left, from Republicans to Democrats and the journalists who amplify their values.
You’re going to find it a very tough slog. And it’s your own damn fault.
During the primaries, the task of exposing the true nature of the Trump takeover fell disproportionately to a few conservative magazines, columnists, renegade radio hosts, and behind-the-scenes activists. We all failed. There will be plenty of time for recriminations and “we happy few” speeches later. (If you detect a note of bitterness on my part, I’m not being clear enough: I contain symphonies of bitterness.)
We failed in part because the mainstream media were having too good of a time to help. Last spring, Stop Trump operatives told me they brought damning stories to mainstream outlets. The response was usually: “We’re not interested in covering that — right now.”
By May, Trump had already received roughly $3 billion worth of free media, thanks to ratings-hungry TV networks. CBS chief Les Moonves summarized it well at an investor conference in February: Trump’s rise “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”
Many in the media were so willing to put clicks and ratings before country because the conventional wisdom was that Trump would fade or implode eventually. Why not gawk at the spectacle? And if Trump did get the nomination, many journalists calculated, all the better. What fun it will be to watch Hillary Clinton destroy Trump and Trump destroy the GOP.
Only slowly have the media come around to the realization that Trump is an actual threat, but now it may be too late because they have a serious “cry wolf” problem. Millions of Americans firmly believe that journalists are water carriers for the Democrats and will tune out much of what they have to say about Trump now that he’s the nominee.
You can start the timeline as far back as the World War II era. In 1944, Franklin Roosevelt told the country that if Republicans were returned to power, “even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of fascism here at home.” The press nodded along.
In 1964, CBS News’s Daniel Schorr claimed that Barry Goldwater’s planned post-convention vacation in Europe was really an effort to coordinate with “right-wing Germans” in “Hitler’s one-time stomping ground.”
In recent years, as the distinctions between news and opinion, analysis and advocacy, reporting and click-baiting has blurred, the problem has only gotten worse.
Every election cycle, the GOP nominee is smeared as a racist by the Democrats or the press — or both. Representative John Lewis of Georgia trades in a bit more of his hard-earned moral authority each time he insinuates that the GOP nominee is like George Wallace or wants to bring back Jim Crow, and political columnists relinquish a bit more of their claim to objectivity each time they let his comments pass without condemnation or criticism.
George W. Bush revived for the Left the paranoid style in American politics, and if you google “John McCain, racist, 2008” you’ll see he was lazily demonized too.
In 2012, pundits said Paul Ryan wanted to throw old ladies over cliffs because he wanted to reform Social Security. When Mitt Romney spoke to the NAACP, the response from many in the media was, per usual, “Racist!” (It’s ironic that many of the notable Republicans rebuking Trump this year are the ones pundits were only too happy to paint as racist not long ago.)
I have no doubt many journalists would defend their smears and professional failures, but that doesn’t change the fact that many Americans outside the mainstream media/Democratic bubble find it all indefensible. More important, they find it all ignorable — because the race card and the demagogue card have been played and replayed so often they’re little more than scraps of lint.
Already, editorial boards are preparing their indictments of what they believe to be Donald Trump’s incompetence, bigotry, and authoritarianism. Trump operatives will undoubtedly respond: “That’s what they always say about Republicans.” And they’ll be right.
— Jonah Goldberg is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior editor of National Review.
Sorry, Jonah, I’m not a Trumpster, but I don’t remember all of those glowing, pro-Trump articles and editorials you’re talking about.
“Liberal Fascism” was an excellent book, very well researched. But this article sucks.
Yes. . and IF Almighty God has had a hand in raising up
DONALD TRUMP at this time, no weapon formed against him
can prosper, & that includes Clinton’s pathetic weapons!
Shalom.
Jonah is terribly biased and hateful of Trump. I saw him on some convention coverage and had to immediately tune out.
He should just hang out with George will and be miserable for the next 8 years.
“Had Jonah Goldberg not been riding his Mommy’s coat tails from Lucianne.Com, he would still be delivering the morning newspaper to his neighbors, which is honestly the highest station in life his skills would have taken him. “
I was thinking exactly this a few days ago......brilliant minds think alike.
Amen to that Steve. They need to fix that website.
It is at the point with some of them, that you have to assume that they want to see HRC win in November. Maybe so they can finally say that they were “right” about Trump losing? Insanity. Dangerous insanity.
If you’ve not already seen Miss M’s post at #44, by all means enjoy the laughs, and you’re right:
Great minds DO think alike. ;)
National Review is nothing but a washed up Establishment globalist propaganda rag.
You mean Jonah doesn’t bathe? Sounds like Michael Moore. He doesn’t either : )
Luckily, I don’t know up front and personal whether he bathes. But he never looks neat or clean to me.
If he insists on working in media, that is the best fit.
We will just stay away from him then : )
His mom Lucy was a huge thorn in Clintons side back n the day, MY HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED!!!!!
That's because you are stupid, godless snobs. Own it, Jonah.
He offers no reason for his disdain of Trump, only recriminations against those who tried to smear Trump for reasons other than the author's disdain.
The fact remains, these gobblings are beside the point. Donald Trump has done more to restore Conservative values--effectively restore Conservative values--than the pseudo-intellectual quack pundits;--and it is long past time for them to stop pretending to relevance in what is in motion.
The issue of the time is Trump's issue: Trump: The Issue. Jonah can go on writing silly articles for what was a Conservative journal in the 1950s & 1960s; but one suspects that his readership is foundering.
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