The problem with 'But Trump's base loves it!' [View all]

[DonViejo]

By Paul Waldman July 3 at 12:58 PM

To judge by the unfiltered contents of President Trump’s psyche as expressed through his Twitter feed, there is nothing he cares about more as president of the United States — not health care, not regulation, not taxes, not trade — than his ongoing battles with the news media. And whenever he says or tweets something more appalling than the last thing he said or tweeted, what ensues is a regular and repeated pattern that goes like this:

1. Trump tweets something despicable.

2. Elected Republicans say, “I don’t approve of this.”

3. White House spokespeople offer laughably pathetic defenses of his behavior.

4. Journalists and commentators point out that as vulgar and infantile as Trump is being, his base loves this stuff, and therefore it may be a clever strategy and not just a hypersensitive, insecure man-child having a tantrum.

-snip- (Trump's anti-CNN tweet)

The problem with Step 4 of this cycle is twofold. First, by assuming his supporters are in fact a bunch of Cro-Magnon mouth-breathers who grunt in approval at any intimation of violence from their hero, it is deeply condescending. And second, it lets Trump off the hook, in effect excusing whatever he does as long as it can be hypothesized that it will be met with approval by his supporters.

From the beginning of his campaign and continuing into his presidency, Trump created conflict with the media in part as a way of riling up his most ardent fans and in part because it was sincerely felt. We know from numerous biographies and profiles that he has always been obsessed with his news coverage and consumed with slights and affronts. On the campaign trail, this had a ritualistic aspect: At rallies he would point to reporters confined to a fenced-in area and tell the crowd that journalists are the worst people in the world, a bunch of lying jackals out to get him. He once even mocked a disabled reporter who had the temerity to contradict Trump’s lie about thousands of Muslims supposedly celebrating the 9/11 attacks on rooftops in New Jersey. The crowd would boo and jeer, then toss epithets at the reporters as they walked out. It was ugly and disturbing, but while Trump openly advocated violence directed toward protesters, he never explicitly told anyone to beat up a reporter.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/03/the-problem-with-but-trumps-base-loves-it