A typical Breitbart headline
Earlier this year, I argued that the conservative movement did not merely have a Donald Trump problem—it had a media problem. As Trump slouched toward the nomination, he was backed by a conservative media that had successfully created an alternative reality bubble around his candidacy. When Trump claimed that “thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey had celebrated the attacks on 9/11, for instance, callers to my show lined up to provide supporting evidence the only source of which was an echo chamber of partisan bloggers; listeners chimed in with evidence they had seen on Facebook linking Ted Cruz’s father to the JFK assassination. Of course, we know the origin of that “evidence” was the National Enquirer. Crowd-sourcing has its limits.
As a #NeverTrumper, I had hoped that the election would prompt a moment of reckoning and introspection, not merely about conservative values but also the role of the conservative media. As someone who has spent much of his career promoting conservative values on my radio show, I was depending on it.
Certainly Trump has serious faults, but the voter revolt against the status quo was one of the best moments our so-called democracy has had in many years.
Hillary could not tap the power of peoples’ feelings about Obamacare and the economic destruction caused by off-shoring because she was part of the problem.
Going forward the Democrats need to articulate clear positions on these issues that respond to the real needs of the American people.