Every four years the Obamedia (Enemy Media, liberal media, "legacy" media, etc.) tries, and usually succeeds, in choosing the Republican presidential nominee for GOP voters and then inflicting him on us against our will. Occasionally they fail (i.e. Ronald Reagan), and their level of success varies from cycle to cycle, and there are certainly other factors that enter into that ongoing quadrennial frustration, but every four years the press always seems to be more satisfied with the Pachyderm standard-bearer than the grassroots are.
But this time 'round they hit the veritable political Powerball lottery with the man who embodies every caustic leftwing stereotype of conservatives ever vomited upon us, their dream GOP candidate, on whom, totally by coincidence, they lavished two billion dollars of free media attention, more than sixfold more than the next closest real Republican competitor, Ted Cruz.
And now listen to them feign "What have we done?!?" contrition at the results of their masterpiece handiwork:
Mesmerized by the bright, shiny object that is Donald Trump, we collectively failed to plumb his gaping lack of policy knowledge and proposals. Not completely, just not enough, and way too late. And not just his: Distracted by Trump, we let the whole field off the hook.
"Whole field"? There were other GOP candidates? Wow, who knew? Answer: everybody who got their "news" independently of the Obamedia
The purely commercial explanation for this dereliction would be that the media, television in particular, didn’t want to kill the golden goose of traffic. That’s too simplistic — and too sinister.
Ruth Marcus is half-right here. "Controversy creates cash" was the OTHER motivation for the media's two billion dollar in-kind contribution to TrumpWorld; but that wasn't the "sinister" explanation.
I think we also believed that exposing Trump’s outrage de jour was doing our job, and would, eventually, sink him.
Aaaaand there is the lie. They knew that Trump was going to suck to the entire campaign to vacuum the moment he stumbled down those stairs last June 15th. They knew everything about him - like everybody else in the country does - his plutocracy, his corruption, his misogyny, his (attributed) racism, his (attributed) "Islamophobia," his gaffetastic "winging it" that will (further) nuke his candidacy with general election voters but that the press knew would only endear him to Trumplicans all the more, just to spite them.
In short, the media recognized the suckers that were 40% of the GOP nominating electorate every bit as much as Trump himself did, and how ripe they were for the plucking, and they spared no effort or airtime to aid and abet his hostile takeover of the Republican Party and dragging of it backwards fifty-two years. And now they're making a token, smirking gesture to cover their asses for that in which they had such a knowing and moon-shooting a hand.
There was one candidate in the Republican field against whom Hillary Clinton would be the overwhelming favorite. And thanks to the press, that is who is the presumptive GOP nominee.
Mission accomplished, indeed.
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