Happy Wednesday! The summer and the breakneck pace of news has gotten in the way of this newsletter recently. But we are back with a special mid-week edition. This one's about Trump's speech last night in Phoenix and what it means for the mainstream and pro-Trump media.
1. Donald Trump Doesn't Have A Challenger. So He's Campaigning For 2020 Against The Media.
Trump's favorite pejorative throughout the campaign was referring to Hillary Clinton as "Crooked Hillary." So it seems significant that the president passed that moniker onto the mainstream media last night. From the speech:
"You're taxpaying Americans who love our nation, obey our laws, and care for our people. It's time to expose the crooked media deceptions, and to challenge the media for their role in fomenting divisions."
Trump's war against the mainstream media is nothing new — but the positioning of the press last night in his speech is notable. His tirade against the media came early in the remarks and lasted longer than any other digression by far. The way the president described the media — as a divisive, irresponsible, and poisonous influence on the country — sounded less like a scathing critique of an institution and much more like an attack ad against a candidate.
In the first seven months of the administration the only coherent ideology to emerge from the Trump White House is an all-out effort to destroy what he argues is a deceitful mainstream media. And so it makes perfect sense that Trump should now — with no clear 2020 Democratic challenger in sight — elevate the media to the role of main opponent.
And in the mind of Trump and his most diehard supporters, there's very little difference. As they see it, the media — like a 2020 challenger — is perhaps one of the few institutions that pose a true threat to his presidency and re-election efforts. And, in the same way that bashing Clinton was a proven way to rally the base, passionate screeds and mockery against the media provides quick wins for Trump that obscure his biggest presidential failures (healthcare, the wall).
Or, as pro-Trump media personality Jack Posobiec put it to me this morning: "Trump's a builder. We're now in the demolition phase of this construction project."
2. The Pro-Trump Media As Donald's Speechwriter.
Trump had prepared remarks for the speech but as is often the case at these rallies, the president departed early and often from the teleprompter. And while Trump's meandering rant against the media was unscripted, the ideas behind Trump's ad-libbing came straight from the battle-tested pro-Trump media ecosystem.
Last night, Trump positioned the press not just as "liars" and "sick people" but as as a fundamental threat to the United States. "I really think they don't like our country. I really believe that," he told the crowd. He then called out CNN, which elicited loud "CNN sucks!" chants from the crowd. Rather than cut them off or admonish them, Trump paused from his speech to let the chants echo.
For anyone who's been paying attention to the fever swamps this summer, it was hard to hear the "CNN sucks" chants and not think back to the pro-Trump media's popular #CNNIsISIS campaign against the network during June and July. Led by pro-Trump media personalities like Mike Cernovich and picked up by Alex Jones/Infowars, and message boards like 4chan and Reddit, #CNNIsISIS wasn't just an attempt to discredit the mainstream media — it was a calculated tactic to position the media as a threat to the country. Basically: a reckless group sowing chaos to promote its agenda and oppress and divide.
Trump stopped well short of any ISIS comparisons but repeatedly signaled the press as a threat to safety, suggesting that the media "give[s] a platform to hate groups" and "turns a blind eye to the gang violence on our streets, the failures of our public schools, the destruction of our wealth." The language is hardly veiled — "they're bad people," he told the crowd, adding, "If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media."
But perhaps more telling is the structure of the rant. Immediately after suggesting that the media is giving a platform to hate groups Trump said "we know that freedom cannot exist if our people are not safe.
And how safe are you at a Trump rally?"
The juxtaposition of the these two ideas set up a clear message: the media are making us less safe.
As is always the case with Trump and the pro-Trump media, it's a bit hard to tell who's programming whom. Trump often acts as an assignment editor for the pro-Trump media and the online apparatus downloads and repeats his rhetoric and talking points. But the reverse also happens — Trump seizes on the rhetoric and tried and true narratives developed over time by the pro-Trump media ecosystem. Much in the same way that Dan Scavino will mine Reddit for tweet-able memes to send from the @realDonaldTrump account, the pro-Trump media is helpful in workshopping narratives for Trump that he can then regurgitate back to the crowd. In turn, they feel heard by their president and they eat it up because, well, they came up with it. In many ways, it’s almost as if the pro-Trump media is Donald Trump’s off-prompter speechwriter.
Oh, and it leads to this:
3. Trump Made The Media Attacks Personal Against His Supporters
Just a quick observation, but this line really stuck out:
“The media can attack me. But where I draw the line is when they attack you, which is what they do. When they attack the decency of our supporters.”
Trump’s war on the media has usually only related to his base by the transitive property. The media attacks me → you voted for me → and so the media is really attacking you. In other words, it’s usually just implied. But on Tuesday night, Trump turned the screw a bit further, suggesting that the media is targeting his supporters with the same recklessness as they’re, say, going after his administration’s potential ties to Russia.
Ostensibly he’s referring to moments like the press’s coverage of Charlottesville, in which numerous outlets pointed out torch-wielding protesters clad with red and white MAGA hats. And that’s it’s own subject ripe for long discussion and analysis. Surely some Trump supporters have drawn unfavorable coverage or been cast in a light by reports that they feel misrepresents them. But putting aside the coverage of Trump supporters, themselves, the rhetoric from Trump suggests a turning point — where the war against the press becomes personal. How that galvanizes Trump supporters remains to be seen.
4. How Trump Creates An Alternate Reality
After the speech across cable news and the internet, pundits and reporters appeared flummoxed by Trump’s choice to offer up a laundry list of provably false statements. He defended his Charlottesville comments by quoting himself at length but omitted the key phrase that drew ire from his critics. He suggested the press would never dare show the size of his crowd and was proven wrong under one second later. He told the crowd that the cameras covering the speech were turning off, despite the fact that they were rolling. Trump didn’t seem to mind.
Inside the hall, surrounded by friendlies, Trump was slowly cobbling together an alternate reality for those in attendance. There was no way his supporters could know what CNN was doing with its cameras and so they trust Trump. They’re likely to go back and listen to or read transcripts of past speeches to look for inconsistencies when the president is standing before them telling them what transpired. From his perch behind the microphone Trump offered up the world the way he sees it. And his supporters came along.
Outside the arena, the effect is more pronounced. Trump’s anti-media rant, for example, feeds itself like this:
First, Trump obscures facts to discredit the media (see: literally every word above).
Second, The media is then left to call it out, as they did during and after the speech. The media is put in the awkward position of having to denounce speech while also assuring their audience they're not personally offended by the attacks and still being objective. Seconds after Trump wrapped, CNN’s Don Lemon came out forcefully, calling the speech “a total eclipse of the facts and questioning the president’s fitness. "If you watched that speech as an American, you had to be thinking, 'What in the world is going on?' This is the person we elected?"
This then leads to the pro-Trump reaction, which is to call out the media for their bias against Trump. Just as former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich did, following Lemon’s comments.
That this cycle self-perpetuates creates something like an alternate reality for Trump supporters. By claiming he’s the victim and giving the media reason to be combative, he then becomes a victim. The narrative is set. Trump creates a reality and we must all live in it.