{"id":1137,"date":"2017-01-23T12:35:50","date_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2017-01-23T12:35:50","modified_gmt":"2017-01-23T18:35:50","slug":"trump-and-the-pwning-of-the-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"Trump and the PWNing of the Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Frankly, one of the most amusing parts of the Trump presidency at this point is watching him completely PWN the mainstream media. \u00a0With 140 characters or a tiny ad lib in a speech he has complete control of “the story.” \u00a0Critics of his approach may make accusations of a lack of discipline or hot temper. \u00a0That may or may not be true, but regardless that it is also much, much more.<\/p>\n

People – by which I mean the Press – seem to forget that Donald Trump is not a politician. \u00a0He is not going to act like a politician. \u00a0They are not considering what he is. \u00a0He\u00a0is<\/em> a high profile developer who has spent decades having his projects and personal life under media knives scrutiny. \u00a0He is<\/em> owner of Miss USA and all the media scrutiny that has gotten. \u00a0Most important, he is<\/em> the man that helped define the genre of reality TV.<\/p>\n

In short, Donald Trump is a media mastermind.<\/p>\n

I suspect, as part of the above, he is also a keen observer of the media and how they have functioned historically. \u00a0His success in the above could hardly occur without that. \u00a0And this, more than anything else is the explanation behind his use of social media and attacks on the mainstream press.<\/p>\n

Nixon. \u00a0Ford. \u00a0Reagan. \u00a0Bush #1. \u00a0Bush #2. \u00a0He’s seen how the press treats Republican presidents. \u00a0He’s also seen all the things that these same reporters let slide during Democrat administrations. \u00a0Based on nearly 40 years of history only a fool would expect fair treatment of Trmp. \u00a0When the New York Times is publishing op-eds above the fold calling on the press to take Trump down, it’s pretty clear that there will not be any getting along with them. \u00a0The tone set by the press is that their job is to take him down, not to hold him accountable.<\/p>\n

President Trump has taken his weakness and turned it into a strength. \u00a0If the entire press corp is going to jump like rabid gerbils on every little jibe that Trump throws their way, then Trump has already won the battle with the press. \u00a0Trump’s entire public persona is crafted around his bombast and snark. \u00a0This kind of rabid press is\u00a0not<\/em> going to hurt him.<\/p>\n

It will, however, make a media that the public already does not trust or respect look like fools. \u00a0At best it will reinforce the prevailing low opinion. \u00a0I predict the more likely result will be to destroy any remaining credibility that the institutional press has. \u00a0These reporters have enjoyed touting Trump’s low approval in the 30s according to a CNN poll (though I noticed they ignored the Rasmussen one putting him at 56%). \u00a0They seem to forget that press approval is only in the teens. \u00a0By latching on to stories that don’t matter beyond simply attacking Trump\u00a0because<\/em> he is president, they are on a short road to irrelevance.<\/p>\n

This brings up the other huge benefit for Trump’s approach. \u00a0By press attacks on every irrelevance Trump utters, there is no credibility on their challenges on Trump’s actions to implement the agenda on which he campaigned. \u00a0If you happen to be aware of his actions since the inauguration, it is clear he intends to actually carry through on his campaign promises.<\/p>\n

Consider the media meltdown on attendance at the inauguration. \u00a0That was the central story all weekend and into this morning’s (Monday) talk. \u00a0At the same time, Trump has actually begun the dismantling of Obamacare, repaired the relationship between the rank-and-file intelligence community, frozen government hiring, pulled out of the TPP, and begun the process of dismantling federal regulations that have choked small business for years. \u00a0What little (commonly negative) is reported on these has typically been wrapped in the same stories expressing press outrage at Trump’s other comments.<\/p>\n

Like it or not, the advantage is strongly in Trump’s favor and he is simply giving a willing press all the rope it needs to hang itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frankly, one of the most amusing parts of the Trump presidency at this point is watching him completely PWN the mainstream media. \u00a0With 140 characters or a tiny ad lib in a speech he has complete control of “the story.” … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,5,8],"tags":[22,273,49,50,51,53,272,216,87,88,264,100,104,106,203,115,202],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-news","category-first-amendment","category-politics","tag-tcot","tag-cnn","tag-culture-2","tag-culture-war","tag-current-events","tag-democrats","tag-journalism","tag-liberals","tag-mainstream-media","tag-media","tag-msm","tag-politics-2","tag-press","tag-progressives","tag-republicans","tag-tea-party","tag-trump"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yCHs-il","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1138,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/1138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.conservativelefty.com\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}