Donald Trump's second presidency has delivered a relentless cascade of outrages that would have dominated news cycles for weeks in any previous era. His social media posts veer into the unhinged. He appears to doze off during meetings. He openly declares indifference to Americans' financial concerns during international negotiations. He fabricates claims about wars he initiated without justification.
The list extends far beyond these daily disturbances. There is the gutting of the Kennedy Center. There is the proposal to demolish the White House East Wing to build a ballroom, or bunker, in its place. There is a Trump-aligned Supreme Court systematically dismantling voting rights protections for Black Americans. There is relentless self-dealing. There is the weaponization of the Justice Department in ways that shatter its foundational purpose.
Yet the mainstream press treats none of it with the gravity it deserves. These developments have become what observers call âpriced in" to Trump coverage. They are simply Trump being Trump.
It amounts to a collective media shrug at developments that would have triggered impeachment proceedings, weeks of saturated headlines, and institutional outrage in any previous presidential administration. The contrast with the Biden years is stark: journalists moved heaven and earth to force a sitting president from his reelection campaign over age concerns, yet the same outlets have largely muted their scrutiny of a 79-year-old president who frequently appears to lose consciousness in official settings.
One recent example illustrates the pattern perfectly. Trump announced an $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization fund" financed by taxpayer dollars, ostensibly to compensate his allies for prior prosecutions. The fund may eventually flow to January 6 rioters who attacked police officers. The New York Times led its print edition with the story, quoting a legal watchdog calling it "one of the single most corrupt acts in American history." A sub-headline cautiously referenced "critics" concerned about a potential slush fund.
By the following Wednesday, NBC's evening broadcast had moved on entirely, pivoting to coverage of other stories. Fox News offered obligatory mentions of Democratic complaints before ceding airtime to Trump allies like JD Vance and acting attorney general Todd Blanche.
The core problem is abundance. There are simply too many outrages arriving in succession. Journalists mobilize to cover one scandal, only to find it buried under the next one before investigation deepens. A billion-dollar ballroom budget gets swallowed by an $1.8 billion slush fund. Dismissals of Americans' budget anxieties fade as Trump courts the next authoritarian leader or threatens a takeover of Cuba.
Former Trump strategist Steve Bannon once described the approach plainly: "Flood the zone with shit." It has proven devastatingly effective at overwhelming media attention and public processing capacity.
A few outlets and independent voices have pushed back. Jonathan Lemire published a piece in the Atlantic acknowledging that Trump has escaped the age-related scrutiny that destroyed Biden's candidacy, pointing to questions about Trump's health and erratic behavior. But such reporting remains sporadic and does not break through the noise.
Terry Moran, a former ABC correspondent now writing on Substack, called the slush fund what it is: plunder. He urged mainstream outlets to abandon euphemistic language like "controversial" or "unusual" when describing explicitly corrupt actions. He called the shielding of Trump family tax records from permanent scrutiny "breathtakingly corrupt." Such direct language is rare in corporate newsrooms.
The structural incentives work against sustained coverage. Trump generates constant outrage, which produces news value, which keeps audiences engaged. Then he moves to the next provocation. Corporate media outlets remain deferential and easily distracted. Independent voices outside institutional news structures often articulate the obvious with greater clarity and force, but they lack the reach of mainstream platforms.
By the time readers absorb what has occurred, mainstream media will have already pivoted to the next emergency.
Author James Rodriguez: "The press corps normalized Trump once before, and it cost the country dearly. Treating unprecedented corruption as routine is not neutrality, it's surrender."
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