The media's foolish moralizing on Donald Trump

This only deepens the already widespread distrust of the mainstream media

Donald Trump's actions and statements have enraged the media yet again.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

The elite media is jam-packed with moralists who have collectively decided in the days since Donald Trump trained his rhetorical fire on Khizr and Ghazala Khan that any pretense of covering the presidential campaign dispassionately deserves to be thrown out the window.

In place of a daily Two Minutes of Hate directed at the Republican nominee, we instead get spontaneous expressions of fulsome disgust every time Trump speaks in public or tweets an attack on Hillary Clinton or his rapidly growing list of bipartisan critics. The moment news breaks of a new Trump Outrage, thousands of people spread the word on social media. And then instantly the attacks begin, first expressing disbelief that Trump would say such a thing, then denouncing him for doing exactly that, with each tweet amplifying the indignation, which crescendos as long as Trump obliges with follow-up statements or tweets, and critics of the original statements or tweets respond with their own statements or tweets. Eventually the wave of righteous anger dissipates, only to be followed by the next.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.