President-elect Trump held his first press conference since the election this week and seemed surprised that he is suddenly so popular with all the wealthy business titans who are making the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago like they’re the wise men and he’s the baby Jesus. He actually seemed to be a bit befuddled by his new found popularity among his billionaire pals:
He’s not wrong. In his first term it was clear that political and business establishment leaders wanted nothing to do with him. And the media elites who are now elbowing each other out of the way to sit next to him and his major domo Elon Musk at the Mar-a-Lago dining table were openly hostile.
A lot of this love coming from the moneyed elite is easy to understand. After all, he promised to eliminate regulation and give them all tax cuts, so what’s not to like?
But it’s more than that. They all seem to be downright giddy at the prospect of getting up close and personal with the once and future president. It’s a far cry from the way they reacted during Trump’s first term, particularly among the media moguls.
Take just one example: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, owner of the Washington Post said back in 2016 that Trump’s declared refusal to accept the election results unless he won “erodes our democracy around the edges.” He added, “one of the things that makes this country as amazing as it is, we are allowed to criticize and scrutinize our elected leaders,… to try and chill the media and threaten retribution and retaliation, which is what he’s done in a number of cases, it just isn’t appropriate.” The Post famously adopted the first slogan it had ever had in its 140 year history, “Democracy Dies in Darkness”, as a declaration of its mission to aggressively cover the Trump presidency.
Now he’s slouching toward Mar-a-Lago currying favor with Trump who has, if anything, gotten much worse than he was eight years ago. Just this week he filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its pollster because they published a pre-election poll that showed Trump losing the election when he ended up winning. It’s ridiculous on its face but after ABC settled a Trump defamation claim earlier this week ( after Debra OConnell, who oversees ABC News, paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump, according to Puck News) everyone understands this as an intimidation tactic.
But I’m not sure intimidation tells the whole story either. I also think the wealthy Masters of the Universe see Elon acting as the shadow president, even hosting events and schmoozing foreign leaders, and they want in on the action. The fact that the Big Billionaire is sitting at the table makes these lesser billionaires want to be there too. In a way, they’re clamoring to be “Influencers”, the hippest of all modern professions.
Nonetheless, it is profoundly disturbing to see the media bend the knee for any politician, much less Donald Trump. But I will remind everyone that we’ve actually been here before and pretty recently. It was a different situation and the motives weren’t the same but in some ways their behavior was even worse.
George W. Bush came into office in 2000 through a ruling by the Supreme Court in an election dispute in the state controlled by his brother. Two of the Justices on the court were appointed by his father. He lost the popular vote. Yet the Republicans and many in the media famously told anyone who didn’t like it to “get over it” and that was that.
Bush and the Republicans claimed a mandate and immediately enacted massive tax cuts as usual. There were some slight stirrings among the press and the Democrats in the Congress were gathering some spirit to rein him in and then 9/11 happened and the demands for unity were overwhelming. Bush had a 90% approval rating at one point and as you can see by the graph below it stayed very high for a long time.
The media completely capitulated to him for more than two years. The propaganda spread by the Bush administration was slick and professional but it was deadly. In their quest to fulfill their long-held dream of toppling Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and remake the middle east as a democratic paradise (at the end of a gun) they lied repeatedly and the news media helped them do it. One of the lowest points in New York Times history was when they allowed a Bush sycophant named Judith Miller to publish front page stories about Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass destruction which later turned out to be non-existent.
But it wasn’t just lies about the war. The media turned themselves into gushing super fans of George W. Bush. The exalted his brilliance when he stood on the rubble of the World Trade Center with a bullhorn and declared to the assembled workers “I hear you! The whole world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!” Soon after, he threw out the first pitch in the third game of the World series at Yankee Stadium and the media swooned over his perfect delivery.
When it became clear that the US was going to war with Iraq, it all took an even darker turn. Dissent was quashed all across society, professors were fired from their jobs for writing allegedly anti-American essays, up and coming journalists were banished for expressing skepticism about the Iraq invasion and long time talk show hosts were fired for hosting guests who spoke out against the war. The repression was very real.
And the adoration for the president continued apace. Do you remember the excitement over this silly stunt?
They made it appear that he had landed the plane himself but of course he didn’t. The sign on the carrier that day said “Mission Accomplished” but he didn’t do that either. The press was completely beside themselves, however, admiring his manly visage and it took a very long time for the country to begin to see him differently.
Bush predictably won re-election in 2004 and once again claimed he had a mandate although it wasn’t any great victory. But his second term was anything but the huge success everyone assumed it would be. They overreached. The government surveillance of Americans, the DOJ attempting to rig the election system, trying to privatize social security, the financial crisis and the bungling of the response to Hurricane Katrina among other things all combined to take Bush’s approval rating down to the high 20s by the time he left office.
I’m not saying it will happen that way this time. Trump and his coterie of billionaires are very ambitious and the right has managed to pollute many of the institutions that existed back then to rein in an authoritarian president. But keep in mind that Trump has even less of a mandate than Bush did and he and his henchmen are less competent. When the global pandemic gave him the chance to become a hero as Bush was after 9/11 he blew it and I wouldn’t assume that he will do any better this time.
I only bring this up to remind everyone that it was only 23 years ago that the media offered themselves as supplicants to a president with a foul agenda just as they are doing today. I acknowledge that the media environment is different now with social media and new disinformation streams that didn’t exist then. But eventually reality always bites. It will bite again.
Salon