Saturday 27 April 2019

Trump will never like the media. Good news or bad news?

Donald Trump just hates hates hates the media. That is never going to change which means that the majority of the big newspapers are going to be against him during the 2020 presidential campaign. In the UK that could spell disaster for the government seeking reelection. When Neil Kinnock, leader of the Labour Party, was looking good to win the general election in 1992, The Sun tabloid newspaper ran a front-page headline which read: "If Kinnock wins today will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights". This headline appeared on the day of the election. Kinnock, despite all the encouraging polls, was annihilated. The Sun undoubtedly played a major role. In Trump's case an adversarial press doesn't seem to make a difference to his chances of winning. In fact, just the opposite. His supporters love it that Trump attacks the media as the enemy of the people. It's one of Trump's big assets in their view. A hostile press boosts Trump's status. The more hostile the press is during the presidential election campaign the more it will help him to retain the White House job I suspect, unless they come up with something so devastating that not even he can deny it! Somehow I think that's unlikely because otherwise Robert Mueller and his team of lawyers would have found it. Now Trump has once again snubbed the invitation to attend the White House Correspondents' dinner, where it's traditional for the president to get some mocking treatment and then to answer back with some cutting but humerous quips. Obama did it rather well. But Trump can't do humour, and he so despises the media there's no way he's going to sit through a three-course dinner while people stand up to make fun of him. It's not Trump's style. Which is a shame for the White House reporters because it's the dinner they really look forward to. Without the president at the top table it's all rather boring.

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