Dear Media, please ignore Trump

After all these years, the hoary host of mainstream media still cannot cover Donald Trump in any useful fashion. The way to do so is simple, but requires discipline, hence the difficulty. The start is to repeat these points to yourselves before any reporting.

Trump is no politician

Politicians consider their careers—state rep to state senate to congress or council to mayor to governor. They have a past, present and future constructed from political parts—elections, mentors, rivals, colleagues, supporters, detractors and reporters. A politician typically ascends through successive election to lower offices while avoiding the ire of political superiors—something that will cradle strangle a career. Even elected iconoclasts bend towards this political arc over time and the stereotypical rich guy who buys a U.S. Senate seat simply rents the networks consultants and current political leaders spent their careers forging through such persistent work.

Our government is guided by rules, but relies norms of acceptable behavior built from over two centuries of shambling process. Combined with the 20th century cold war pressures to keep one’s party crazies in the attic, lest give the commies an advantage, and you have a narrow political road most pols have traveled. Even old conservative Regan/Bush grinders had core beliefs in governmental decorum, in spite of working everyday to disassemble it.

Political reporters come up through this system, from township trustee meeting stringers to White House correspondent, in a symbiotic relationship with those they cover. Politicians are often duplicitous, but they have a unique sensibility and language reporters observe throughout their own careers. And, since the advent of 24 hour news cycle, reporters cover politicians who typically speak very carefully, from fear of that one wrong deplorable moment amplified out of control. So there is this set of political norms reporters grow to understand over time that shapes their reporting. Add to this an American journalistic weakness which sees challenging questions as unbalanced journalism, or worse as possibly partisan, and the problem covering Trump takes shape.

Trump totally avoided the usual schooling gained by ascending through offices and kept the consultocracy, with its understanding of typical norms, at bay as well—especially this in the 2024 cycle. Candidate Trump does genuinely talk over the heads of the pols and reporters to his voters. Everything Trump says and does is for their ears and eyes. Reporters trying to understand Trump through any usual political lens will miss the point. Sanewashing, as it was called, was not as much diabolical corporate media plot, but reporters schooled to think “this must mean something” because politicians, in their experience, typical mean something, even when evading.

Trump does not rely traditional political norms and its attendant language. In analogy, if modern English is the language for everyday politics, Trump speaks Old English to native Old English speakers. Reporters might catch some words, but will misunderstand most and, therefore, miss the important points and intended effects.

Nothing about Trump fits any template for how any politician has ever acted. His approach to politics and government is—catch me if you can. The universe of reporters still have not wrapped their collective heads around this fundamental point.

Trump is impaired

His brain occilates between sociopathy and dementia, with the occasional idee fixe born from a rando Mar-a-Lago dinner conversation. This would be harmless except Trump will be president with a pathological fear of looking weak, laughable or stupid.

So, Trump says something crazy about Greenland, probably something he heard between his ketchup covered steak and chocolate cake. He brings said thing up in an interview. Reporters ask questions in later days as if Trump held some real position without considering it a likely psychopatholgical meander. But Trump can never walk anything back, as per his fear of weakness. so he’ll send Don Jr. to Greenland to pretend a plan is afoot. Reporters, treating Trump as a politician, created a “Greenland Crisis” and days of useless news cycles. So, consider what the liklihood is of Trump just being nuts before taking anything he says seriously.

Trump is a dick

Crass, but a succinct and accurate description. He will say things to rile people up and see if the statements are useful or just to laugh at jerking reporters around and panicking the left. And, of course, there is distraction as well. Trump enjoys how he can lead the news cycle around by the nose because media outlets lack awareness or concern for how Trump operates. Reporters discussing Canada invasions are not covering the horrible cabinet secretary appointments now skulking around the senate offices for confirmation. He hated Trudeau anyway, so give him grief while Trump’s intended audience enjoys owning the libs.

Trump will leverage his office to say the incendiary and see how far media coverage will go to follow his line—all just to get some jollies, do market research or employ expedient misdirection. Power does reveal character indeed.

What is a reporter to do

Now Trump has some very well developed statements, mostly on hating non-aryans that must be taken seriously because these have been in repertoire for years. But following the onesies or twosies is a waste of time. The key is what he says consistently at his rallies without pressure from media questioning. Deportations and retribution are high on the hit parade. Tariffs are there, but this is more extortion racket than a real belief on Trump’s part—a real shame if anything happens to your business give my inauguration fund money policy. But anything in a single interview is not worth pursuing because Trump either is impaired or a being a dick. When Trump starts perseverating without prompting, then look into it. Otherwise keep to what is concretely happening.

This is the discipline. Cover the brutal, incompetent kleptocracy every day for what it does. Do not fear the challenging questions, like “who says that” and “what is your proof?” Do not look at the shiny invasion of Canada or the retaking of the Panama Canal and cover the hypothetical. If any in the media (and I am looking at you MSNBC) truly wants to resist fascism, the first step is to not let the fascists direct the media coverage.

Stay on target.