Liberal Journalism in the Age of Trump

Left-of-center journalists may actually help him win reelection.

As many of you know, I’m no fan of Donald Trump, for a whole bunch of reasons — topping the list was his attempt to stay in office after he lost the 2020 election. But I’m no fan of Trump-era journalism either. I get the impression that too many liberal journalists think their job isn’t simply to report what he says and does absent any bias — or to point out the many things that come out of his mouth that aren’t true. No problem with any of that. But too many journalists think their job is to take Donald Trump down — and they convince themselves it’s not simply because they hate the guy, but it’s for a noble cause, for what’s best for America and the American people. 

Sure.

When he was president, they ran with the Russian collusion story, “news” about how Trump was either working for the Kremlin or was a “useful idiot” the Russians were exploiting. For a change, Trump was right — it really was fake news. But liberals in the media despise Donald Trump, so they wanted to believe the worst about him — and so they perpetuated the lie that hung over his presidency. Media allies in the Democratic Party couldn’t have asked for more.

Earlier this month journalists were in a feeding frenzy over Trump’s (ill-advised, just plain stupid) use of the word “bloodbath” to describe what he believes would be a catastrophe for American auto makers unless they’re protected from foreign imports.

At a political rally in Ohio, he said he would impose heavy tariffs on imports if he’s elected. Then he said, “Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath (referring to the auto industry)” … then he continued saying —“that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.”

A bunch of liberal journalists said he was advocating violence if he lost the election.  NBC and CBS News ran headlines saying Trump was predicting a bloodbath if he lost. Liberals on cable TV said the same thing. Never mind that he was clearly talking about an economic bloodbath and not instigating a civil war if he lost.

There’s more. Early this year, a Manhattan jury awarded $83.3 million dollars to E.J. Carroll, a writer, saying Trump defamed her after she accused him of a decades-old sexual attack. The jury found that he continued the defamation in social media posts and at news conferences — “and even in the midst of the trial itself,” as the New York Times reported.

Let’s assume that every syllable of every word Trump uttered about Ms. Carroll was factually incorrect. Still … $83 million! Really? Play along with me and imagine if a prominent liberal Democrat were ordered by a jury in Alabama or Nebraska or Idaho or any other red state to pay that kind of money for defaming a conservative woman. Journalists in particular and liberals in general (rightly) would be outraged. But with Trump, they figured he deserved what he got.

And more recently, he was found guilty of inflating his real estate assets, this time by a judge in Manhattan (where Biden won 85 percent of the vote in 2020), and was fined a staggering $464 million. As the Wall Street Journal said in an editorial, “The judgment is overkill. None of Mr. Trump’s business partners lost money lending to him or claimed to have been deceived by his erroneous financial statements. No witness during the trial said his alleged misrepresentations changed its loan terms or prices, and there was no evidence that he profited from his alleged deceptions.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James, a progressive Democrat who prosecuted the case against Trump, ran her election campaign essentially promising voters that she would take him down. According to the AP, “Letitia James fixated on Donald Trump as she campaigned for New York attorney general, branding the then-president a ‘con man’ and ‘carnival barker’ and pledging to shine a ‘bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.’”

Again, no one lost any money because of what he did. No one claimed deception by Trump. And yes, he’s often reckless and brings a lot of problems on himself. Still, as you read this, Ms. James is doing her best to financially ruin the former president. Yet it’s hard to find outrage in the so-called mainstream media — or among liberals generally. Again, play along and imagine a right-wing attorney general in a ruby red state announcing in advance that she was going to bring down a prominent Democrat — and then did her best to do just that. You think liberals in or out of the media would simply yawn?

There’s irony in all of this. Journalists who loathe Trump are actually helping him when they pile on. They make him look like a victim, hard as that is to believe. Leave it to liberals to figure out a way to make the man they despise come off as, if not actually sympathetic, something close to it — and not only as far as his MAGA base is concerned.

And so those left-of-center journalists — along with their liberal and progressive pals in the Democratic Party  — may even wind up helping Donald Trump win back the White House. How’s that for irony?