It might sound crazy to say that Donald Trump is beyond the reach of criticism. After all, isn’t he regularly pilloried on all the major networks, most of the cable news channels, and on the front pages of most national newspapers? Quite so: and this fact, if anything, causes his supporters to huddle closer, and reject or attack anyone who dares utter a critical word. This, in turn, creates an environment in which pundits and politicians on the Right are terrified to say what they really think.
The Trump presidency is reminiscent of the Twilight Zone episode “It’s a Good Life,” in which terrified adults tiptoe around a mercurial child with superpowers, responding to his every cruel and crazed act by nervously saying: “It’s good that you did that, Anthony!” Anthony responds to criticism by sending adults to a “cornfield” from which nobody has ever returned. When one drunken adult snaps and tells Anthony what he really thinks of him, he is turned into a Jack-in-the-Box.
Trump routinely exaggerates and lies, and the people who surround him applaud and say: “It’s good that you did that, Donald!” Trump recently claimed that the New York Times had made up a source out of whole cloth—an official who addressed the likelihood of a summit with North Korea on June 12. When a tape emerged of the very official whose existence Trump had denied, Trump fans were livid…with the media. Trump has made deliberately inaccurate accusations about being wiretapped by Obama and having a “spy” planted in his campaign for political purposes. When these claims are shown to be false—with Trump even boasting that he “branded” an informant as a “spy”—his supporters double down and insist he was right all along: “It’s good that you told those lies, Donald! It’s a real good thing!”
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Trump is the Flavor of the Month, and most conservative media have read the writing on the wall. Networks like Fox have largely abandoned any pretense at objectivity, and have surrendered their airwaves to Sean Hannity style cheerleading. The message is clear: line up behind Trump or else. Some pundits get the message, like Hugh Hewitt, and perform the political equivalent of acrobatics to get their public to forget the nasty things they said about Trump in the past.
Others don’t get the message—or refuse to heed it—and, sometimes, we get fired for it.