The Media Helped Trump Win in 2016… And They’re Doing it Again in 2020
How the Media’s inability to break from tradition to speak out against harmful “political views” will lead to President Trump winning reelection
In the early hours of Nov 9th, 2016, the United States had a new President-elect and it was not who many anticipated, especially the candidate himself. Then President-elect Donald Trump looked surprisingly stunned during his speech after his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton formally called to concede the race. But how could so many have gotten it wrong? It all starts with the very people who helped Donald Trump become a household name: the mainstream media.
Throughout the course of the 2016 campaign cycle, Donald Trump was given continuous media airtime for free as they covered his MAGA rallies that he held weekly, if not what seemed to be daily for months straight. Trump continued his rallies well after his victory and even began campaigning for his re-election in 2020 starting the day he assumed office in 2017. For Trump, it was free exposure to the 330 million Americans he would soon be responsible to defend and protect from all threats both foreign and domestic, even if that threat was President Trump himself.
Since coming down the escalator in Trump Tower, Trump has taken a hard line by pushing an “Us vs. Them” style campaign claiming that illegal immigrants were streaming through our southern border which could only be stopped by building a big concrete wall that Mexico would pay for. Trump also talked up the “radical left” claiming that the liberals were trying to instill socialism and communism into the very fabric of our society. Many Americans took this rhetoric to heart and since then we have seen the number of hate crimes and white supremacy messages growing throughout the country.
So how does the media play a part in all this? The media continues to provide equal coverage to messages even if it goes against what Americans tend to claim the values of our country are or should be. For a nation that was founded on immigration, the display of xenophobia has risen dramatically across the country in the form of policies that have been implemented by the White House led by President Trump. Children are being separated from their parents and held in cages. Immigrants (notably from Mexico) are being categorized as rapists, thugs, and drug smugglers even though data shows that a vast majority of people who immigrate to the country are the exact opposite.
For a country with a deeply troubled past with racism and systemic racism, we continue to see its ugly face time and time again which is clearly on display during the recent surge in Black Lives Matter protests with the usage of the phrase All Lives Matter to delegitimize the protesters’ message. Black Americans across the country continue to be disenfranchised and poverty-stricken which has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Neither of these compares to the recent onslaught of authoritarianism that has emanated from the White House and other agencies at President Trump's behest. In recent weeks, federal agents have stormed cities across the country attacking protesters and violating their civil rights by throwing them in unmarked vehicles to be taken to undisclosed locations without being told why they were arrested in the first place. As recently as last week, President Trump hinted at personally interfering in the November general election by moving or delaying the election due to an inaccurate belief that mail-in voting is ridden with fraud (Reminder that in 2016, Trump claimed in-person voting had large amounts of fraud which also proved to be inaccurate). Trump-appointed Post Master General has also recently slowed down mail delivery behind the scenes by cutting over-time and other necessary operations to ensure that mail-in ballots will arrive on time to be counted when the election does take place.
The media continues to allow these things to happen and become normalized. Major stories that broke throughout the year barely caused a blip on the radar that would normally be a groundbreaking story during any other Presidency. One of the most notable stories of the year is that militants targeted American soldiers in the Middle East with the promise of bounties paid out by the Russian government. The media has yet to press Trump hard on this topic like many others to hold his administration accountable to any faults or missteps that put American lives in danger.
The mainstream media is allowing these stories to become normalized and every step towards chaos becomes more and more normal as stories continue to break. They mustn't let this happen. The media need to hold their ground and press the President on these important issues. If not any of the before mentioned issues, they should press him on the most important issue facing American voters today, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has infected over 4.5 million people and killed 150,000. Ask why the federal government has failed to establish a national strategy to combat the virus. Ask why it was left up to states to fend for themselves and bid against each other to get necessary supplies in the early weeks of the pandemic including PPE for frontline workers in the hospitals and medical centers who would eventually treat COVID-19 patients.
When it comes to our politics today, it is time the media and American citizens take a stand to say that certain policies and “political views” are not ok. You cannot be pro-racism. You cannot be pro-authoritarianism. These ideas go beyond our values as Americans and if the media continues to provide cover for those who spew these beliefs and a platform to spread them to others, we will continue to see our democratic norms and institutions eroded and weakened until it is too late to correct course.
