Atlantic, top newspapers, MSNBC launch campaign against second Trump term

There is no longer any pretense.

Not even a fig leaf about fairness.

Much of the mainstream media opposed Donald Trump when he ran in 2015 and 2016, and for the four years of his tumultuous presidency. After the Jan. 6 riot, the condemnation was practically universal.

However, now that he’s sitting on a monster lead in the GOP primaries and has a good shot at winning back the White House, most of the mainstream media have basically launched a crusade to defeat him.

It’s not that Trump hasn’t given the press plenty of ammunition. It’s not that he shouldn’t be held accountable for his own rhetoric and social media posts, but I have never seen anything like this in my professional lifetime.

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The Atlantic has devoted its entire issue to the dangers of another Trump term. Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg kicks it off with the opening essay:

"Trump and Trumpism pose an existential threat to America and to the ideas that animate it. The country survived the first Trump term, though not without sustaining serious damage. A second term, if there is one, will be much worse."

From there you can click on pieces by top staff writers, including David Frum ("Trump operates so far outside the normal bounds of human behavior"); Anne Applebaum ("Americans will be so consumed by the drama of their own failing institutions"), Sophie Gilbert ("the only American president found legally liable for sexual abuse") and George Packer, who says this about the media:

"Media organizations, including this one, have warned for years that Trump is a danger to the democracy that makes journalism possible…If half the country believes most of what the mainstream media report and the other half thinks it’s mostly lies, this isn’t a partial win for journalists, whose purpose isn’t to strengthen the opposition but to give the public information it needs to exercise democratic power. Trump’s purpose is to destroy the very notion of objective truth."

Former President Trump takes the stage during an organizing event at Fervent Calvary Chapel on July 8, 2023, in Las Vegas. (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

But there is a contradiction there. If media outlets have warned for years that Trump is a danger to democracy, doesn’t that "strengthen the opposition" – and help explain why half the country doesn’t trust the media?

The Atlantic sent its top writers on the TV circuit, which in turn led to plenty of Trump-bashing on MSNBC.

However, the Atlantic is hardly alone. The Washington Post devoted several pages of newsprint to a piece by monthly columnist Robert Kagan, a neoconservative who left the GOP and endorsed Hillary Clinton.

"A court system that could not control Trump as a private individual is not going to control him better when he is president of the United States and appointing his own attorney general and all the other top officials at the Justice Department. Think of the power of a man who gets himself elected president despite indictments, courtroom appearances and perhaps even conviction? Would he even obey a directive of the Supreme Court? Or would he instead ask how many armored divisions the chief justice has?"

The New York Times has been rewriting the same warnings about the horrors of a Trump second term roughly every other day, with slightly different angles that mainly utilize the same quotes from the former president. 

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Here is Monday’s version:

"As he runs for president again facing four criminal prosecutions, Mr. Trump may seem more angry, desperate and dangerous to American-style democracy than in his first term…Mr. Trump’s and his advisers’ more extreme policy plans and ideas for a second term would have a greater prospect of becoming reality."

Since the Times is the morning playbook for much of cable TV, numerous shows quoted this verbatim throughout the day, kickstarting their own discussions about the dangers of Trump.

However, some stories are absolutely fair game. The Post reports, based on court filings by his lawyers, that Trump is trying "to circulate a new set of falsehoods: that the federal government staged or incited violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to discredit Trump and his supporters."

He has asked the Justice Department "for information on far-right claims often elevated in his speeches, on his social media feeds…Trump is also suggesting that the government is withholding information on people known as ‘Fence Cutter Bulwark’ and ‘Scaffold Commander’ — nicknames given by conspiracy theorists to people they claim are government agents who instigated the Jan. 6 riot."

(Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

And just yesterday, Steve Bannon, the former top White House official pardoned by Trump, addressed his ex-boss’ post that MSNBC’s anti-Trump coverage amounts to "illegal political activity":

"I want the ‘Morning Joe’ producers that watch us and all the producers to watch us – this is just not rhetoric. We’re absolutely dead serious," he said on his podcast.

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"You cannot have a constitutional republic and allow what these deep staters have done to the country. The deep state, the administrative state, the fourth branch of government never mentioned in the Constitution, is going to be taken apart, brick by brick and the people that did these evil deeds will be held accountable and prosecuted, criminal prosecutions. (As Steve obviously knows, the "fourth branch" is mentioned in the First Amendment.)

I want to be crystal clear: Donald Trump, given his track record and continued argument that the last election was "rigged," deserves plenty of media scrutiny. 

A liberal reporter added fuel to online fire that a conservative news outlet was duped by a former President Trump impersonator, or even artificial intelligence. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

At times, he seems determined to generate headlines, such as using the word "vermin," that provide ammo for those who want to depict him as a potential dictator.

And the contrast with coverage of President Biden – with a couple of major publications offering him advice on how to beat Trump – could not be greater. 

However, while some journalists and outlets still try to be fair, there is no question that many major organizations have crossed the line into becoming what Bannon once called the "opposition party."

One footnote about the Atlantic special edition: In 2016, National Review published an entire issue, "Against Trump," that included attacks from outside contributors. Trump ripped the magazine, which did nothing to slow his march to the presidency.

Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX News Channel's MediaBuzz (Sundays 11 a.m.-12 p.m. ET). Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in July 2013 and regularly appears on Special Report with Bret Baier and other programs.