U.S. President Donald Trump is making things easy for members of the media. He makes it so we, the various consumers of media, don't need to wait for so-called opinion pieces labeled "analysis." Does the Trump phenomenon require deciphering? Do media consumers really need "informed" explanations from pundits to understand "where the U.S. president is headed"?
Trump's persona doesn't require deciphering. It can honestly be said, as Trump himself has honestly said: He loathes the media, the printed and online press, radio and television. Trump, as president, is not a student of one of his very early predecessors, Thomas Jefferson, who sanctified freedom of the press as a foundation of democracy.
Does this mean Trump rues his country's democratic traditions, and wants to harm the press? The answer is no, in my view. Trump's recent clash with CNN reporter Jim Acosta, which was broadcast across America and far corners of the globe, is like an addictive drug; it is the oxygen that fuels Trump the politician. The caustic, hate-filled barbs aimed at CNN and the press at large, infuse Trump with energy.
We can dare assume that upon returning to his private quarters in the White House, the president perhaps boasted: "I showed them! Again!" After all, Trump the fighter, the admonisher, the insulter of women and immigrants ("They're rapists!") is in fact the real Trump, bare, raw, without masks.
During his exchange with Acosta, Trump was like the child shouting at the tyrant: "The emperor has no clothes!" The emperor is the media. It's a shame the original tale, "The Emperor's New Clothes" didn't tell us what the king said to the child in response. Trump's "fake news" mantra hit the nail on the head for many Americans, and the term is now part of everyday language.
Had he ceded to his speech writers, had he failed to convey his own words to the masses, it's doubtful he would have ever been elected. In the spirit of the Wild West, we can say that Trump is the gunslinger in town. Jim Acosta, who is mostly a nuisance at press conferences, has been of benefit. He has contributed a great deal to our understanding of the president.
However, the clash with Acosta also comes at a price the media is forced to pay: Indeed, reasonable people probably condemned the president's invectives toward Acosta. But are people asking themselves, in any serious manner how, despite his tone, was Trump elected president? He was elected because large portions of the population, in the U.S. and even here in Israel, have lost faith in the stories the media tells us. There are many in agreement with Trump, even tacitly, that yes, the media is prone to feeding its consumers "fabricated news."
According to a poll conducted in Israel, over 60% of the public doesn't trust the media. These are precisely the people in Trump's sights. Had he wanted to pander, had he put an emphasis on enriching his vocabulary, had he stopped speaking from the cuff, the masses would probably never have thronged to his rallies. It's extremely doubtful he would have succeeded had he dressed up and posed as someone other than the flesh and blood person we've all come to know, and who many have started to love.
