Speaking at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, last Saturday, former president Donald Trump made the following remarks in regards to the potential loss of the US. Auto Manufacturing Jobs: “Let me tell you something to China, if you’re listening President Xi, and you and I are friends, but he understands the way I deal. Those big monster car manufacturing plants that you’re building in Mexico right now, and you think you’re going to get that, you’re going to not hire Americans, and you’re going to sell the cars to us? No. We’re going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not going to be able to sell those cars. If I get elected. Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath, for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it. It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country. That’ll be the least of it. But they’re not going to sell those cars.”
These comments created a frenzy among the mainstream media; CNN, NYT, NBC, and Politico each initially ran alarmist headlines insinuating that Trump was once again promoting political violence. NBC ran the story with the headline “Trump says there will be a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses the election.” Knowing the entire context of this statement, it’s fairly clear that Trump was referring to the “period of disastrous loss or reversal” definition of bloodbath, and not the “slaughter of a great number of people” definition of bloodbath.
On the other hand, Trump sycophants online were quick to jump on the opportunity to invoke Trump Derangement Syndrome, with one user on X making a supercut of mainstream Liberal talking-heads using the word bloodbath in a variety of contexts.
Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS), or the pejorative idea that something about Trump just drives Liberals cuckoo, is back, as is the subsequent “Trump-Said-X” newscycle which has dominated much of the national conversation since he came down that escalator, and played a significant part in his 2016 election win. With TDS spreading and beginning to take up more and more of the national news cycle, journos are having their attention diverted from other, more concerning issues, like Trump’s immigration comments that same day:
“If I had prisons that were teeming with MS13 and all sorts of people that they’ve got to take care of for the next 50 years, right? Young people, they’re in jail for years and — if you call them people. I don’t know if you call them people. In some cases, they’re not people in my opinion but I’m not allowed to say that because the radical left says that’s a terrible thing to say. They say, ‘You have to vote against him because did you hear what he said about the humanity . . .’ I’ve seen the humanity and the humanity. . . these are bad . . . these are animals, ok?”
These comments are horrifying, but not in any way shocking to anyone familiar with the former President, who has proven himself time and time again to be committed to dehumanizing immigrants. However, of the four outlets I listed above who reported promptly on the drummed-up bloodbath story, only one (NYT) included any mention of Trump’s comments about immigrants in their headlines. TDS upended the more important coverage of Trump’s words on immigration, so that the media could continue to promote the narrative that Trump has no interest in upholding Democracy as an institution in America. This is a narrative that I, and many other Americans who keep up with Trump’s antics, believe to be true and important. But in promoting this narrative so sloppily, the Media has actually hurt the narrative they’re attempting to draw attention to; now, Trump fans can add another notch to the belt of one of their key narratives, that the Media and other institutionally entrenched forces are out to get their guy.
The real challenge for journalists covering Trump this Presidential election cycle is to balance their awareness of Trump’s inability to be given the benefit of the doubt due to the political violence he inspired on January 6th and Trump’s continued commitment to doubling down on his incendiary sentiments. In 2016, mainstream news outlets spent a lot of time hand-wringing about their journalistic practices after giving Trump 4.6 billion dollars in free press, but with the kind of coverage we’ve seen of the bloodbath story, it seems they haven’t yet learned their lesson. If they don’t soon, they’ll find themselves in a hole they themselves dug, for the second time.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
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