The reaction to one of the longest, most raucous presidential press conferences in history depended largely on where one was at. For the mainstream media and the never trumpers, President Trump had become completely unhinged, acting like Captain Queeg demanding where the strawberries had gone to. For Trump’s many supporters, the spectacle was the president giving the media the thrashing they have richly deserved. For most people, the reaction consisted of, “I was at work. Anything happen?”
That Donald Trump is a different kind of president has been obvious for some time.
A typical White House presser when the president is a Republican consists of the media asking gotcha questions and the POTUS assuming a pained expressed that says, “When can I get back to dealing with reasonable people, like the Russians or the terrorists?” When POTUS is a Democrat it’s all bowing and scraping, with the exception of the occasional renegade from Fox News.
Trump, however, laid into the reporters, calling them a bunch of liars and poltroons and doing it with a smile on his face. He also suggested that the Obama holdovers who were leaking and undermining his efforts to make America great again were going to get theirs in the fullness of time.
The media is going to have to change the standard game plan that has worked so well for it the past few decades.
Polling suggests that the public believes that Trump has far more credibility than does the media. That means that when the president accuses the gentlemen and ladies of the press of being purveyors of fake news, he is largely believed. The people hate the media for the self regarding egomaniacs that they are.
Part of the reason that the media doesn’t get it is that they live in a bubble, divorced from the vast majority of people who watch TV and view the Internet.
They go to the same expensive schools, live in the same ritzy neighborhoods, and run in the same elevated circles. Gone are the Lou Grant types who were rose from the working or middle class to write for a newspaper or get a correspondent spot on network TV. The media has suffered as a result and Trump who, though born to wealth acts as if his father was a truck driver, has taken full advantage.
