There they go again. The Beltway press corps that missed the national unhappiness that led to Donald Trump’s 2016 election is apparently stunned by the current outrage directed at the regime.
Maybe they should pay less attention to feckless Democratic “leaders” and consultants who apparently feared the “No Kings” protest was a risky event that would be seen as unpatriotic.
“The dangers outweigh the potential upsides for Democrats and for Trump, which is not a contradiction,” said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way. “Trump could go too far; he always does. And the protests could also—and already kind of have—go sideways for us.”
And when millions took to the streets in more than 2,000 protests in all 50 states — not to mention Canada, Japan and Europe — Politico, which bills itself “the global authority on the intersection of politics, policy, and power” — offered what they no doubt considered to be a revealing headline:
The Resistance 2.0 arrives with nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests
It actually arrived quite awhile ago, if only they were looking in the right places.
Like Republican town halls. Until GOP congressional members stopped going to them because of the anger over Elon and his Musk Rats “Department of Government Efficiency” slashing and burning of federal programs to finance a tax cut for the Broligarchy.
Or the Hands Off rallies of April 5, that also generated turnout across the nation, including 100,000 people in Washington, DC, but were largely underplayed by legacy media.
But “No Kings” was just the opposite of what those high-priced consultants and pundits suggested. Attendance far outstripped turnout for Trump’s birthday parade, where even the soldiers seemed as if they would rather be somewhere else.
It’s basically a truism that journalists constantly fight the last war— which in this case started 10 year ago today, when Trump descended his golden escalator. They followed the tried and true handbook of cataloging every “gaffe” — calling Mexican immigrants “rapists,” mocking John McCain’s time in captivity, Trump insisting he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose a vote.
And were mystified when what were once surefire ways to lose an election bounced off him. A scene repeated by pollsters who also failed to see how voter anger could play out.
That prompted a navel-gazing phase, which continues today, beginning with trips to red state diners to hear the grievances of Trump supporters.
While turning a blind eye and deaf ear to what is still a majority of Americans appalled by Trump’s grift and cruelty.
Part of this obtuseness can be blamed on realities out of reporters’ control. Local media, which would be the first to capture the mood of a community, has been hollowed out.
Today, 200 counties in America have no local newspaper, while 1,540, half of all counties, have only one newspaper, usually a weekly, according to the Expanding News Deserts project.
Many of the remaining publications are under the corporate ownership of Gannett or MediaNews Group, venture capital operations that rack up billions in debt and then strip their properties of resources like buildings and journalists to pay the investors.
Local television news, which has long operated on the “if it bleeds it leads” philosophy, is hardly in better shape. Three companies — Sinclair, Gray Television, and Nexstar Media Group purchased 215 stations between 2010 and 2020. And Sinclair is considered the Fox Propaganda Channel of broadcast news, bringing a conservative, national focus to local news.
It doesn’t help that national broadcasters are among the groups bending a knee to Trump’s crackdown, with ABC News paying $15 million to make a winnable lawsuit go away and firing a longtime reporter for a social media indiscretion that should have warranted no more than a suspension.
CBS, the one-time Tiffany Network, is working to make an absurd $20 billion lawsuit disappear so the current owner can get regulatory approval for a sale.
Then there’s CNN, which has been laser-focused on promoting anchor Jake Tapper’s book on the “cover-up” of Joe Biden’s decline, while missing obvious signs of the increasing decline of the current Oval Office occupant, who now routinely stumbles up and down airplane stairs too.
Far less attention has been paid to the fact that the White House has released almost no information on the extent of injuries Trump received during an assassination attempt last year.
Or that they routinely withhold medical information that used to be released by presidents — Biden included.
And they also appear to be blind to reality that world leaders — Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Benjamin Netanyahu to name three — either manipulate Trump or don’t take him seriously
Time to get out of the bubble and into the real world.