The ex-president is ranting and raving on social media, making wild claims and vowing revenge—and yet, too often, he’s treated as a conventional candidate.
Donald Trump is poised to win the Republican nomination. If the polls are right, though they often aren’t, he’ll handily win Iowa and New Hampshire, at which point there will likely be very little chance of any non-Trump candidate slowing him down (not that they put up much of a fight to begin with). He’s also racking up endorsements, with prominent Republicans, including representatives Tom Emmer and Steve Scalise and Senator Tom Cotton, throwing him their support this week. And if you believe the polls pitting Trump against Joe Biden—I, for one, am skeptical—then the quadruply indicted former president is positioned to return to the White House.
Around this time last year, I argued that someone who tried to overturn the 2020 election shouldn’t be covered like a “normal” 2024 candidate, and yet, even four criminal indictments later, it feels like he is being treated that way. Whereas Trump enjoyed $ 2 billion worth of free media to dominate the news cycle during his 2016 run, these days he rarely sits down with mainstream outlets and opens himself up to scrutiny. His autocratic plans and extremist rants, while garnering some headlines, seem to quickly be forgotten amid the latest polls. Given that Trump and his allies have already told us that he plans to target the news media, whether “criminally or civilly,” it’s worth pausing and considering whether we’re adequately covering his unhinged behavior.
At this point it’s such a routine thing for him and/or his cult to say/do something absurd that it becomes a part of the ambiant noise. People can only tolerate being outraged for so long before it gets to a 'just tell me when it’s over" state of self preservation. The problem of course is that putting it out of mind could well be the thing that loses self preservation to the rabbid masses swallowing his rhetoric.