The media needs Trump

A four-year absence devastated ratings and advertising

Animator Lily Emalfarb reminded readers in April that on a few occasions Wile E. Coyote caught the Road Runner. Those times did not go well.

She wrote, “Released in 1966, The Solid Tin Coyote differs from nearly all of Wile E. Coyote’s traps, being that he actually manages to catch the Road Runner. After a few failed attempts, Wile E. Coyote lands in a dump filled with spare parts and scrap metal. To the Road Runner’s surprise, Wile E. Coyote has built a giant robotic coyote he’s able to control successfully.

“Upon activating and programming the robot, Wile E. Coyote heads after the Road Runner, engaging in a classic chase, only this time with a major advantage. Though it takes some trial and error, Wile E. Coyote’s robot eventually captures the Road Runner, but when he tells the robot, ‘Eat, stupid,’ it eats him instead of the Road Runner, ending his short-lived success.”

Please note that the robot was not built by Acme. This furthers the conspiracy theory that the Road Runner actually runs the company.

The American media has chased Donald John Trump ever since he came down that golden escalator and entered presidential politics on June 16, 2015. In a story written by its in-house Wile E. Coyote, National Review revealed itself to be another conservative institution taken over a generation later by liberals. In this case, mediocre ones.

The headline was, “Witless Ape Rides Escalator.”

What followed was a word salad that would have embarrassed Kamala Harris: “Donald Trump may be the man America needs. Having been through four bankruptcies, the ridiculous buffoon with the worst taste since Caligula is uniquely positioned to lead the most indebted organization in the history of the human race.”

The story was so bad that even Claudine Gay, the copycat and killer of Harvard, wouldn’t plagiarize it.

NR’s witless and melodramatic Against Trump issue was a pair of cement shoes for its circulation and reputation.

The Guardian reported, “Its publisher Jack Fowler wrote that it had been disinvited by the Republican National Committee from the debate which was to be held on 26 February.”

The problem for NR and the Weekly Standard (which went out of business completely) is that the anti-Trump market already was oversaturated by openly liberal lizards whose bird seed Trump would easily gobble to no ill effect.

Neocons found themselves in midair. They looked down and that kicked gravity into gear. 10 seconds later, a small ball of smoke appeared on the ground far, far below.

That was in January 2016. Nearly 8 years later, the entire media is looking down. The Atlantic is preparing its own Against Trump edition to roll out next month: If Trump Wins. Its editors assured themselves, this time, such a magazine load of anti-Trump crap will work — just like a parasol stops a crashing boulder.

The Atlantic announced, “The next Trump presidency will be worse.

“A special issue of The Atlantic, launching today, warns of the grave and extreme consequences if former President Trump were to win in 2024 — building an overwhelming case, across two dozen essays by Atlantic writers, that both Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it. With each writer focusing on their subject area of expertise, the issue argues that assuming a second term would mirror the first is a mistake: The threats to democracy will be greater, as will the danger of authoritarianism and corruption. A second Trump presidency, the opening essay states, would mark the turn onto a dark path, one of those rips between before and after that a society can never reverse.”

I never tried pot so readers will have to inform me as to how many hits or joints it takes to believe and write that.

The pieces are online to promote the publication, which means they likely were written before Thanksgiving, which means the DNC talking points they make may date to Halloween as they had to be vetted by polls and focus groups.

One piece cleverly tries to the reverse the polarity — inserting a little Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into the mix — by pretending Trump was the aggressor in the media’s war on his election.

Its headline is “Is Journalism Ready? The press has repeatedly fallen into Donald Trump’s traps. A second term could render it irrelevant.”

This reminds me of the report in the Acme Acres Beacon-Journal on Wile E. Coyote falling into the Road Runner’s traps.

But what caught my eye was this: “As soon as Trump left office, readers and viewers disappeared — within a month, The Washington Post lost a quarter of its unique visitors, and CNN lost 45% of its prime-time audience. From exile, Trump summoned one reporter after another to Mar-a-Lago and gave interviews for books that both sides knew would attack his presidency and become best sellers. When he returned as a presidential candidate and criminal defendant, cable-news-network ratings climbed again.

“It’s impossible not to feel that Trump has gotten the better of this codependent clench. His endless stream of grievance and invective eroded his supporters’ trust in the news media to the point where 58% of Republicans now say they have none. If half the country believes most of what the mainstream media report and the other half thinks it’s mostly lies, this isn’t a partial win for journalists, whose purpose isn’t to strengthen the opposition but to give the public information it needs to exercise democratic power. Trump’s purpose is to destroy the very notion of objective truth. The match was rigged in his favor, and being compelled to fight it has not been good for journalism.”

58% of Republicans don’t trust the media because it is not trustworthy. Playing gotcha with the 45th president instead of reporting the news straight caught up with the media. Painting tunnel entrances on granite mountains is all fun and games until Trump goes in, you peer in, and you discover Trump’s driving a locomotive your way.

Beep-beep.

So what should the press fear in the second Trump presidency?

The Atlantic reported, “A second Trump White House would give important policy scoops to friendly publications such as The Federalist and The Washington Free Beacon rather than to supposedly unfair outlets like The New York Times, which would report them unfavorably.”

Presidents favoring a flattering media has only been going on since Day One. I mean, when was the last time Obama gave Breitbart a scoop?

The Atlantic’s writer ended his piece, “That would be my hope for the press in a second Trump term: to investigate his presidency relentlessly, burrowing deep into every obscure corner where power might be abused, for the record and the future if not for now, and leave the cotton candy aside. Journalists can give the public what it needs to govern itself, but they can’t save democracy. That will be up to the American people.”

In other words, the Atlantic wants the press to keep buying Acme products knowing they never work.

And by Acme products, I mean Democrat talking points. How’d that mugshot of Donald Trump work out for them?

Emalfarb observed, “Though Looney Tunes’ Wile E. Coyote has only caught the Road Runner on a few occasions, he’s never short on Acme traps and bad ideas.”

If Jeff Bezos is looking for a new publisher for his Washington Post, may I recommend Mr. Coyote?