As The Plum Line‘s Greg Sargent says, “Conservative victimization routine is so tiresome.” Raise your hand if you agree. And it isn’t just the sense of persecution but that it’s all because we reject their blatantly false claims.
Even some conservatives have grown tired of Trump’s whining specifically, Jim Acosta, in particular, (remember, Acosta was the guy Trump did not allow to ask a question) at his first press conference as president.
The New York Times even used the word “false” in their headline: “With False Claims, Trump Hits Media on Crowd Turnout.” Trump, of course, would like that to read “With Alternative Facts.” Not happening.
Trump wants to delegitimize the press, to press his “alternate facts” as a replacement for actual facts and to bully the media into accepting this, a not unreasonable expectation given how well he has managed the media so far, but he seems to have miscalculated just how much bullying they are willing to take.
He can attempt to throw Sean Spicer under the bus and has, but the media understood immediately what was taking place and who had put those words in Spicer’s mouth. That damage is done.
Sullivan wrote that “Some journalists, afterward, sounded stunned at what had transpired” and that such a reaction was “understandable” but the press should not have been surprised. If they had reported honestly about Donald Trump in the first place, they would have understood this was the logical next step of his war on the press.
They ignored Trump’s totalitarianism in favor of treating him with kid gloves and obediently attacking Hillary Clinton. It is to be hoped their’s are no longer eyes wide stupid, but wide open, seeing Trump’s lies as the authoritarian propaganda that it is.
Matthew Yglesias of Vox puts it like this:
“The genius of defining ‘the media’ as your administration’s political adversary is ‘the media’ won’t fight back. Don’t fall for it.” Trump did fall for it, and he paid for doing so this weekend.