The Media’s Nostalgia for the Bush Years Is Ridiculous

This is the President, after all, who did everything that the modern Left supposedly despises; this is the man who sent thousands of young Americans to their deaths in Iraq.

The political polarization in the United States continues to be marked by excuses for disgraceful behavior displayed by both sides, while each screams at the other, blaming the other team for abhorrent behavior. As an outsider viewing the U.S. political scene from the UK, perhaps the most striking sign of the decline of American political dialogue is its media’s obsession with President Donald Trump. Although the President’s flaws are manifest, the media remains blind to its own failings.

As is often the case with those who loudly oppose someone they proclaim to be an affront to their morality, the object of detestation holds a peculiar fascination for the critics. This attitude was most recently displayed by an editorial in USA Today: “Will Trump’s Lows Ever Hit Rock Bottom?” According to the USA Today editorial board, Mr. Trump is “unfit to clean toilets in Obama’s presidential library” or to “shine George W. Bush’s shoes.” Mr. Trump’s faults may indeed be boundless, and, as the editorial board goes on to suggest: “Rock bottom is no impediment for a president who can always find room for a new low.”

This editorial is another example of media coverage that fails to see past its vehement dislike of the man; never mind his policies, he is “uniquely awful” as a man and his behavior is “corrosive” to the values that hold America as country and government together. It is almost as if the media is begging for Trump to conform to their worst image of him so that they can engage in more moralistic flagellation about themselves, the ‘good people,’ as contrasted from, Mr. Trump, ‘the bad president.’