Trump has every reason to hate the media, and you could be forgiven for thinking that it was simply fighting back against the scathing left.
They relentlessly mock him and make a fool of him (even though most of the time they are just reacting to what he says). Just imagine being in that position, how would you feel?
However, there is something more calculated and deliberate about the way in which Trump and his Administration call out the media and how they constantly refer to them.
“The very very dishonest media.”
Trump is working overtime to create distrust by sheer overload, exhausting people into not knowing what the truth is or isn’t. It’s almost daily now that we hear of some stupid fight the media is having with Trump. He says his crowd size was bigger than Obama’s. It wasn’t, and it’s so easy to prove wrong, but what his denial does, for his supporters, is give them reason to suspect that the media is trying to undermine him. He is sowing the seeds of doubt.
In the future, this is going to be a real problem. The de-facto Muslim ban is just the start (literally week 1), and when he does do something really terrible, he’ll deny it, and half the country will be unable to tell if it is media spin or reality.
He craves the unaccountable office that Putin has, where nobody would be there to stop him. He has already called out judge Robart for upholding the law. As the media keep playing his game, I feel like they are walking into a trap. It’s like the boy who cried “Wolf” except, this time, the wolf is just pretending he isn’t a wolf every time, and half the people believe it.