President Trump and the Mainstream News Media

How the news media will try and play Trump against his supporters

If you were to form your opinion about Republicans or conservatives based on the news media coverage, you would think they are racist, angry, hateful, bigoted, misogynist, pro-rich, anti-poor, anti-minority, anti-immigrant, anti-science, anti-LGBT, elderly, strictly Caucasian, dogmatically religious and out of touch. If one were to dig up history, it would probably after the fall of Nixon that the emboldened the media to show their liberal bias, but the blatancy occurred after the emergence of multiple 24X7 news channels.

When Donald J. Trump announced his candidacy. The media took their scorn for Republicans and turned it to eleven hiding any pretext of being balanced. What helped is that many ‘establishment’ Republicans were anti Trump. First the claimed he would not win states, when Trump began winning states in the primaries, they said he would not last when other candidates dropped out. When Trump secured more votes than any GOP primary candidate in the history of the party, they were steadfast in their assertion that he would be overthrown in favor of an ‘establishment’ candidate at the GOP convention. 

During the general elections, they carried polls that had Trump perpetually trailing. They questioned his health, temperament and even his sanity. Then the most preposterous of allegations that Trump was a KGB Agent who would work under the orders of Vladimir Putin upon becoming President. The Trump supporter was not spared either, at best they were called ignorant at worst they were called bigoted. These petty tactics had worked effectively to derail other candidates, but this did not work with Trump. In fact the bond that Trump had with the voter remained intact, in fact with every baseless attack he grew stronger. 

Apart from the bond, there was one major difference why Trump prevailed where other GOP folks perished. Trump is a fighter and does not suffer silently when disparaged. Trump's attitude while dealing with the media remains the same. Trump aggressively confronted the media mendacity during his interviews, campaign rallies and on social media. Trump also used social media to directly communicate with the voter.  

Thus on November 8th 2016, Trump managed to clinch an emphatic victory over Hillary Clinton who received nothing but favorable coverage from the media despite her scandals and trust deficit. For the first time since the 24 X 7 News channel boom has the media found themselves rendered absolutely irrelevant. 

So have they learned their lesssons? Based on what has been going on they clearly have not. Clearly this unholy collusion between the Democrat party and the media has been built over decades and will not be broken by one humiliating defeat. 
Their strategy post the Trump victory seems to be the following and it is likely to failed like it did during the campaign:

1. To keep talking about the popular vote in an attempt to give the impression that the general public doesn’t support him 
2. To keep legitimizing bogus ideas of the recount, the Russian hacking and the protests to delegitimize Trump.
3. To propagate bogus approval ratings
4. To carry on with the old message of Trump being unfit, unprepared, lacking in temperament, disorganized and is bound to fail.

But there is most sinister and possibly more dangerous ploy in the making, just take a look at the following examples:

In the 60 minutes interview opened with the announcement that Trump was ‘flexible’ on his campaign positions. Instances of him wanting to maintain some part of Obamacare or not being willing to conduct deportations and even settle for a fence instead of a wall or prosecute the Clintons. None of these were true and that was evident during the interview.

The media also carried a story that lobbyists were part of Trump’s transition team, soon it emerged that the lobbyists were actually expelled from the team. There was a story that Trump had sought security clearance for top secret briefings for his children and son in law. Once again, these stories were debunked by Trump himself on Twitter. 

When Newt Gingrich erroneously claimed that Trump was dropping the "Drain The Swamp" motto, the media ran with it as the 'ultimated betrayal by Trump of his supporters. Once again this was corrected by Trump. 

Controversies were created when Trump was interviewing candidates for his cabinet. When appointments were the media tried to push the narrative that it was a club of rich white men. But the truth they are tough negotiators, achievers and business leaders with a reputation of getting things done, this is a huge difference from the standard politicians and theoriticians with no political experience.

The end goal of these spurious stories is to plan doubts in the mind of the supporter. To try and impress upon the voters that Trump whatever Trump said during the campaign was to get elected and now he has changed. This will be an attempt to divide and conquer.  

So how to you the Trump supporter process any piece of news from the media?

As you did during the election cycle, with a great deal of suspicion and only after deep investigation, verification and research must they be trusted. Unless you hear it from the official members of Trump adminstration, it has to be assumed to be a complete falsehood.

It is important to remember that there has been not statement, act or appointment by Trump that can be termed as a blatant violation of campaign promises. The other good news is that Trump via his Twitter account continues to correct media lies and sometimes play with them. It may make sense for the Trump administraiton to set up a Twitter account that is solely dedicated to countering media lies. 

So far Trump had achieved what no other President Elect has ever achieved, he has managed to prevent thousands of American jobs from being shipped abroad and he has been effective in negotiating with Boeing to reduce the price of the Air Force One planes. 

This Trump landslide victory is not the end, it is rather it is the beginning of a battle. Trump has always maintained that his rise to the presidency is a movement that emanated from the grassroots, hence the grassroots will have to play a vital role in maintaining this movement. Trump is going to Washington to overhaul the corrupt system and bring about real change for the country. The establishment (both national and global) that be will not give up without placing impediments at every juncture and indulging in a prolonged and dirty fight. Hence you the Trump supporter will actively participate in carrying Trump's message and countering lies.

Remember that in defending Trump you are defending your interests and in defending your interests you are defending your country.