Trump’s second term actions face different media portrayal than Biden

Donald Trump stands accused of trying to repeal the 20th century.

That’s how the New York Times puts it, and there is ample reporting to back that up.

But I would add this bit of perspective.

When Joe Biden came into office, he was widely portrayed as making important, progressive, reforms. He was depicted as undoing the damage of Trump’s first term. He was one of the good guys.

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(Biden was also derided as too old for the job and mentally declining, and shielded from the press, and botching the border, but his heart was seen as being in the right place.)

When Trump won a second term, he was immediately viewed as a human wrecking ball.

He’s been absolutely aggressive, taking on elite law firms, Ivy League universities and the media, winning big settlements from two of the three broadcast networks, ABC and CBS. He’s sealed the border, backed stronger tactics by ICE agents, and slapped even longtime allies with sky-high tariffs–all of which he had promised during the campaign. 

But most in the media have portrayed this as moving backwards, undoing important reforms and damaging the country. They have slid back into the familiar role of the Resistance. 

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The framing is that Trump is destroying democracy, ruining the economy, yadda yadda yadda. He is one of the bad guys. Never mind that he won the popular vote. 

Trump is undoing what Biden did, as Biden did after Trump’s first term, and that is a catastrophe. 

The president also successfully bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, and despite the debate over how much of a setback that was, most Democrats and media people refused to credit him, or did so grudgingly. 

(At the same time, Trump and his Justice Department also bungled the Jeffrey Epstein case, refusing–after a big buildup–to release anything, on grounds that there was no client list and that the convicted pedophile did commit suicide in prison.)

On Sunday’s Mediabuzz, Sarah Bedford, investigations editor of the right-leaning Washington Examiner, called it “a huge PR disaster for the Trump administration. There’s no way for them to spin their way out of this.”

I’ve been trying to figure out why this is striking such a deep chord among MAGA loyalists, rather than being a two-day story, and this is my take.

The no-need-to-release-anything about this “creep,” as Trump calls him, is a proxy for a broader sentiment that the rich and powerful always get away with things. They protect each other. They’re never held accountable for actions that would sink the rest of us.

I’ve been trying to figure out why this is striking such a deep chord among MAGA loyalists, rather than being a two-day story, and this is my take.

The no-need-to-release-anything about this “creep,” as Trump calls him, is a proxy for a broader sentiment that the rich and powerful always get away with things. They protect each other. They’re never held accountable for actions that would sink the rest of us.

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From the New York Times: “On matters big and small, Mr. Trump has hit the rewind button. At the broadest level, he has endeavored to reverse the globalization and internationalism that have defined U.S. leadership around the globe since World War II, under presidents of both parties. But even at a more prosaic level, it has become evident that Mr. Trump, 79, the oldest president ever inaugurated, simply prefers things the way he remembers them from his youth, or even before that.”

In the well-reported piece, Peter Baker says Trump wants has called into question fluoride in water, flu vaccine and car safety standards. 

“He has made clear that he wants to return to an era when ‘Cats’ was the big hit on Broadway, not ‘Hamilton;’ when military facilities were named after Confederate generals, not gay rights leaders; when coal was king and there were no windmills; when straws were plastic,  not paper; when toilets flushed more powerfully; when there weren’t so many immigrants; when police officers weren’t discouraged from being rough on suspects; when diversity was not a goal in hiring or college admissions or much of anything else–all to save America from “radical left lunatics.”

You may or may not agree with this analysis, but there’s little question that Donald Trump wants to hit the time machine and return the country to a time when he was growing up, or even decades before that.

That, after all, is why we have elections.

Footnote: President Trump posted this, seemingly out of the blue:

“Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship. She is a Threat to Humanity, and should remain in the wonderful Country of Ireland, if they want her. GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

I don’t think he has the power to do this to a natural-born American citizen. And I don’t think he will. But even if he did, wouldn’t it have to be tied to some kind of national security threat? Rosie, with whom he’s been feuding for years? 

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She has hit back, probably thankful for the publicity:

“The president of the usa has always hated the fact that i see him for who he is – a criminal con man sexual abusing liar out to harm our nation to serve himself – this is why i moved to ireland – he is a dangerous old soulless man with dementia who lacks empathy compassion and basic humanity.”

Zero evidence that he has dementia, of course. But why go there?