Matt Taibbi isn't every conservative's cup of tea, but he does make some insightful observations. See, for example, The Media Is the Villain – for Creating a World Dumb Enough for Trump. Excerpt:
For more than two years now, it's been obvious that Donald Trump is a disaster on almost every level except one – he's great for the media business. Most of us who do this work have already gone through the process of working out just how guilty we should or should not feel about this. ...
Trump's monstrousness is ironic, since the image of Trump as the media's very own Frankenstein's monster has been used and re-used in the last years. Many in the business are of the opinion that, having created Trump and let him loose in the village, we in the press now have a responsibility to hunt him down with aggressive investigative reporting, to make the world safe again.
That might indeed be a good idea. But that take also implies that slaying the monster will fix the problem. Are we sure that's true? ...
Taibbi tells us that Trump has been a ratings bonanza for the msm. And they brought that about themselves, as anyone who watches TV news can attest. More from Taibbi:
We spent years selling the lowest common denominator. Now the lowest common denominator is president. How can it be anything but self-deception to pretend this is an innocent coincidence?
So Trump is the "lowest common denominator?" Taibbi appears to be in the camp that thinks Trump supporters' proper place is in that basket of deplorables made famous by Hillary Clinton. Clive Crook may have a better answer in Why People Still Support Trump:
[A] large majority of this large minority are good citizens with intelligible and legitimate opinions, who so resent being regarded as racist idiots that they'll back Trump almost regardless. They may not admire the man, but he's on their side, he vents their frustration, he afflicts the people who think so little of them -- and that's good enough.
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12:46 PM 8/31/2017
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