Bob Collins
Donald Trump is heading to Wisconsin today where a pre-visit round of appearances on conservative talk radio didn’t go so well yesterday. Today’s visit is the candidate’s first and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has hung out the unwelcome mat.
By any measure, today’s editorial said, “Trump is unfit to be president.” It called on voters to make Wisconsin “the beginning of the end” for Trump at the April 5 primary.
Any other Republican would be immolated by the hail of fire and brimstone called down upon Trump by movement conservatives over his apostasies. Not Trump. And that’s probably because many Republican primary voters don’t care much about the issues that animate the editors of National Review and The Weekly Standard.
In fact, the elites of both parties have abandoned working-class voters, many of whom have been kicked to the side of the American economy.
If any good arises from the Trump candidacy, it will be that more attention is paid to people marooned by both parties, which have catered relentlessly to the interests of high-roller campaign donors. Like, say, in the past, Donald J. Trump.
Meanwhile, mainstream media is coming under more fire for allegedly creating Trump’s popularity by virtue of its coverage.
At a journalism awards ceremony last night, President Barack Obama chided journalists for not fact-checking enough, the New York Times said.
The president suggested that the news media had not done enough to question the promises made by politicians — an apparent reference not only to Mr. Trump, but also to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the independent who is challenging Hillary Clinton, Mr. Obama’s former secretary of state, for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Sanders has promised free public college education and national health care coverage, ambitious social programs that critics say could never be enacted.
“When people put their faith into someone who can’t possibly deliver his or her own promises,” Mr. Obama said, “that only breeds more cynicism.”
The president denounced what he called the practice of drawing “false equivalences” between competing claims made by politicians. “If I say the world is round and someone else says it’s flat, that’s worth reporting,” Mr. Obama said. “But you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that seems to support the notion that the world is round.”
Did the media create Trump? No, Eugene Robinson contends in the Washington Post.
The “media created Trump” storyline ignores the fact that the “mainstream” media are about as popular among the Republican base as the Zika virus. And the one exception, Fox News, has been tougher on Trump than other outlets, not more accommodating.
Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday,” has long refused to let Trump call in. And anchor Megyn Kelly, with her sharp questioning and commentary, seems to have driven the blowhard billionaire up the wall.
It is true that Trump delivers huge television ratings and lots of website clicks. But that’s irrelevant. News organizations have to cover the leading candidates, even if they’re dull as dishwater.
Sometime today, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will announce his endorsement in the Republican race.
Related: Trump tries to win Wisconsin without backing of radio hosts (AP)
Mysterious Donald Trump tombstone pops up in Central Park (CBC)
