Former President Donald Trump, 76, finds himself radioactive after announcing for president Nov. 15, with controversy following him wherever he goes. When he hosted 45-year-old Kanye West and his 24-year-old white supremacist buddy Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago Friday, Nov. 26, it created a media uproar, again accusing Trump of racial insensitivity. Everything Trump does carries negative publicity with the media, accusing him of planning the Jan. 6 Capitol riots and holding classified documents at his Palm Beach Mar-a-Lago estate. So, whatever Trump does, the media demonizes him, leading 52-year-old former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to join the Republican anti-Trump coalition, the same group that did everything possible to sabotage his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump wants to erase the past but he carries the kind baggage that makes him as less viable candidate.
Ryan wants the GOP to move on from Trump, not because he disliked his presidency or his ideas on the economy and foreign policy, but precisely because he doesn’t think Trump is electable anymore. Judging by the media hubbub over Trump’s brief dinner with Kanye and Nick Fuentes, everyone wants to jump on the anti-Trump bandwagon, accusing him of affiliating himself with white supremacists and anti-Semites. Whether Kanye is really anti-Semitic or not is questionable. Nick Fuentes, a lout on the Internet, shows how social networks gets young people notoriety. Fuentes has been known for incendiary rhetoric about white nationalist and Holocaust denia.. Trump denied knowing anything about Fuentes but the media can’t stop using the brief dinner to highlight Trump’s insensitivity to racial and religious issues. Whether the issue blows away or not, it shows the extent to which the press is out to get Trump.
Moderate Republican governors like Chris Sunumu (R-N.H.) used Trump’s dinner meeting to prove he has no place running for president. “Republicans, we’re looking in 2024 and we’re looking for a winner,” calling Trump’s dinner with Kanye and Nick Fuentes “absolutely reprehensible,” overstating his case against Trump. “I think it makes him even less electable in November in November of 2024,” Sununu said. But Sununu is no different that anyone in the press who has had it in for Trump’s four years in office. Trump ran in 2016 on a anti-press platform, giving the public the term “fake new” for posterity. But Trump real problem is that none one can run against the U.S. press establishment, thinking they can turn voters against the press. Sununu reflects the fact that the media wants no part of Trump now or in the future. Ryan too mirrors Trump’s abysmal press relations.
Press has already turned his brief meeting with Kanye and Nick Fuentes as another Aug. 8, 2018 “United the Right” rally in Charlottesville, where Black Lives Matter and White nationalist groups clashed over taking down Confederate monuments. Trump was falsely quoted in the press as supporting White Supremacy, agreeing with Neo-Nazi groups in their hatred of Blacks and Jews. Trump only said that there was passion on both sides of the Charlottesville march. For that, Trump was crucified in the press, giving 80-year-old President Joe Biden something to get mad about. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) slammed Trump for hosting the Kanye and Nick Fuentes dinner. “If you have people who are constantly creating distractions and taking you off message and forcing people to answer questions like the ones that you’re asking, that’s not a good thing,” said Thune.
Thune and other GOP leaders don’t get it’s not what Trump does-or-says that breeds the controversy, it’s about the media literally finding anything to pick on the former president. Thune, Ryan and others should be asking whether Trump’s past track record with the press makes him unelectable? Whether it’s last weekend’s controversy or the next weekend, the media won’t let up on Trump no matter what he does-or-says. “I had no idea what his views were and they weren’t expressed at the table in our very quick dinner, or it wouldn’t have been accepted,” Trump said, knowing, that no matter what he says, the press holds his feet to the fire. Whether Kanye or Nick Fuentes mean anything or not, Trump’s Democrat or press enemies won’t stop milking the controversy anyway possible. Trump’s problem as a viable candidate involves his abysmal press relation. Something not going to change.
Trump’s base accounts for about 25% of the electorate, assuming it continues to hold strong during the next several months. Trump’s no longer a novel candidate, having already served four years in office. By the time Democrats campaigned against him in 2020, Trump was the personification of evil. Democrats blamed Trump for the Covid-19 crisis and racism in America, following the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd. Trump talks about massive voter fraud but Democrats and the press demonized him to the extent he was no longer electable for 75% of voters. When it comes to running again, the same press problems promise to demonize him the same way Democrats and the press did in 2020. Republicans should worry whether or no Trump’s a viable candidate. Judging by the relentless press demonizationl, Trump’s chances in a national election look more unlikely by the day.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes polticially neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
