In 2018, Herald columnist Fabiana Vilsan ’19 analyzed the news media’s portrayal of President Trump during his first term. Amid President Trump’s dramatic return to the Oval Office, I returned to Vilsan’s commentary to try to understand the exact ways Trump has changed between his two terms, especially in his relationship with the press. In drawing parallels between these two distinct time periods, it is apparent that the nature of Trump’s presidency impedes on Americans’ ability to remain politically informed, even if they deliberately seek out political news.
Since his first term, Trump has doubled down on his efforts to paint the U.S. media as an “enemy of the American people,” insinuating that he would retaliate against his journalist critics. Trump’s criticism of the media is no longer just a talking point but part of his agenda. In his interactions with the media, Trump has, through distraction, effectively stifled the ability of traditional news media to check his presidential powers.
Vilsan identified a real issue in the relationship between media outlets and Donald Trump: Their criticism often wasn’t constructive and fixated on the President’s character rather than policy. This “bias” against Trump during his first administration ostracized conservative audiences because they didn’t see any practical criticism beyond his antagonism. Voters, even those who opposed Trump, weren’t always left with a concrete sense of why his policies were harmful, but rather — as Vilsan put it — “juicy personal details.”
This coverage hinders an essential mission of the press: informed and accessible criticism that holds political leadership accountable. During Trump’s first term, there was “a hailstorm” of character criticism, but a shortage of concrete analysis which constructively criticized specific policies. Today, we remain in a hailstorm, but a storm of executive order headlines rather than character attacks. Instead of stories on Trump’s sexual assault accusations or his distasteful humor, we see ones about his withdrawal from the World Health Organization and threats to occupy Greenland.
This recent coverage seemingly solves the issue that Vilsan encountered. But this policy coverage still furnishes the executive office with a sort of smoke-screen. In his New York Times column, Ezra Klein details Steve Bannon’s strategy to “flood the zone” with so many policy actions that the opposition is unable to extensively criticize all of them. Trump’s chaotic, and often laughable, policy initiatives — such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America or declaring that there are only two biological sexes — aren’t necessarily a direct execution of his agenda, but rather an attempt to exhaust the public into complacency.
Bannon’s strategy prevents coverage that fully encapsulates political developments because there are simply too many to keep track of. Trump has signed almost 70 executive orders since taking office, and those don’t even account for the changes made at the hands of his cabinet members. Each day, there seems to be a new bombshell Trump headline that astonishes even more than the last. This calculated desensitization leads to the same surface-level discourse that prevented constructive criticism in Trump’s first term.
American citizens cannot reasonably keep track of governmental actions in this chaotic landscape, preventing anti-Trump citizens from forming informed opinions about his policies and, more importantly, disarming their ability to constructively criticize them. Voters are left with half-baked talking points about Trump’s executive orders rather than a nuanced understanding of their implications. For Democrats, this can prevent productive conversations with Trump voters who may question their support of the president.
The execution of Trump’s presidency has made him seemingly immune to critical media. In his first term, character flaws and personal scandals overshadowed genuine critiques of Trump’s policy. Now, the onslaught of executive policy has sped up the news cycle to the point where it cannot focus on an entire political development — including legal or political challenges or policy evolution over time — because one hot headline will be replaced by another drastic move the next day. The primary accountability function of political media in a democracy has been obstructed by President Trump, even four years after we’ve moved on from just attacking his character.
If Trump critics hope to reach the electoral bloc that opened the door for his return to the White House, there must be an intentional effort to overcome this inherent flaw in the consumption of political information.
CJ Lair ’28 can be reached at craig_lair@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
CJ Lair is a staff columnist at the Brown Daily Herald. He is from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and plans to study Political Science at Brown. This is his first year writing for a publication, and is especially interested in political developments and their impacts on the Brown community.
