By Joe Concha for the Messenger
Donald Trump has been called every name in the hyperbole handbook: Authoritarian, dictator, extremist, racist, xenophobe, Hitler-like, Stalin-like, the second coming of Mao, “Orange Jesus,” Putin’s puppet, a democracy-destroyer, and more.
This isn’t anything new, of course. Many of these labels and portrayals were applied even before the former star of NBC’s reality-TV show, The Apprentice, took office in January 2017. And the drumbeat has continued for the better part of seven years. But like the boy who cried wolf, many in the media have beaten this drum far too often, diluting the fear-mongering until it has almost zero impact.
The unintentional comedy rose to new heights this week, after The Atlantic dedicated its entire January/February edition to explaining how and why Trump will destroy democracy if he wins a second term. It has 24 writers penning 24 perspectives on the same narrative described as “the grave and extreme consequences if former President Trump were to win in 2024.”
Included in the warning was how journalism will struggle under Trump, who was only the most press-accessible president in modern history during his last term. He held 35 solo press conferences during his final year in office. (How many has Joe Biden held this year? Three.) As for journalism floundering under a second coming of Trump, poll after poll shows the industry is floundering quite well on its own during the Biden era, with trust at an all-time low, even among Democrats.
Not to be outdone, the New York Times, which hasn’t endorsed a Republican presidential candidate since 1956, went into a veritable panic on Monday in an extensive piece warning of Trump using the Department of Justice to investigate his political opponents. If this sounds strangely familiar, perhaps that’s because that’s exactly what’s happening now, with Trump facing 91 felony counts and four different state and federal trials set to begin before Election Day in 2024. Here’s the ironic part: The more Trump appears in a courtroom, the more his numbers go up — because sane, sober folks know political persecution and election interference when they see it.
But didn’t the Founding Fathers think all this through to ensure checks and balances exist so we don’t have dictators running the country? Under Trump the Sequel, won’t there still be different branches of government and separation of powers — a Congress, a Supreme Court? And didn’t President Biden sign more executive orders and actions (106) in his first 100 days than did Trump, Barack Obama or George W. Bush? Where were the dictator warnings then?
Trump trolled the outlets and pundits over the cries of “Dictator!” during Tuesday’s town-hall program with Fox’s Sean Hannity. He said he’d only be a dictator “on Day 1” while laying out his plans, presumably through executive order, to “close the border” and “drill, drill, drill.” Predictably, hysterical headlines followed. Trump seemed to know exactly what he was doing in making that joke instead of playing defense over a hypothetical.
Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney is getting her star turn as media darling this week, promoting her new book, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning. “One of the things that we see happening today is a sort of a sleepwalking into dictatorship in the United States,” she told CBS News on Sunday regarding another Trump presidency. She also accused House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of being “a collaborator” with Trump to take down democracy.
Cheney, of course, was part of the now-defunct House January 6 Commission that investigated the 2021 Capitol riot and accused Trump of being fully responsible for it. Dozens of witnesses were called before the commission, which consisted solely of anti-Trumpers under the guise of bipartisanship because Cheney at the time had an “R” next to her name. And it wasn’t exactly democracy in motion, because the same commission did not allow cross-examination of its handpicked witnesses.
Cheney, who lost by 37 points in deep-red Wyoming to her primary challenger in 2022, has announced she is considering a third-party run against Trump. She would have no shot, of course, but that’s not the goal. Instead, the objective appears to be to get on TV as much as possible to talk about Trump rather than Biden, who is polling lower than any president since Jimmy Carter.
The reason for such panic among many in the media over the former president are recent polls showing Trump not only beating Biden nationally but in the key states that decide elections, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania — all states Biden won narrowly in 2020. Biden also trails Trump among voters under 35, a once-unthinkable prospect; some Black voters are fleeing him, too, as are independents — even some Democrats, over his staunch support of Israel. If Biden was a boat, he’d be taking on water from all sides.
But calls for the 81-year-old president to step aside have been ignored. So, many media outlets have turned to attacking Trump by using the if-he-gets-elected-then-democracy-will-die hypothetical, all within a few days of each other in a hysterical echo chamber that ultimately will have zero impact. Why? Because these are the same outlets which portrayed Trump as a Russian asset, largely based on the unverified Steele Dossier.
On the Republican side, former United Nations ambassador and presidential hopeful Nikki Haley has benefited from positive headlines in recent weeks, with pundits and writers pointing to new momentum behind her campaign. CNN did a recent deep dive regarding Haley’s possible path to the Republican nomination but conceded that her chances remain slim, given Trump’s massive lead.
Other outlets have followed suit in seemingly pushing Haley as the Republicans’ Trump alternative, but the numbers are the numbers: Haley trails Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of major polls by more than 31 points in Iowa and is 27 points behind Trump in New Hampshire, with voting in each state less than two months away.
Thus, the media theme of the week seems to be “A.B.T.” — anybody but Trump.
We’re told democracy is at stake. It’s the most overplayed song on the political dial.
And despite what seems to be a coordinated effort to sing from the same sheet of music about the dangers of Trump, this effort may end up having a boomerang effect that hurts Trump’s opponents more than the target himself.
