NYPD removes “Arrested Trump” from Trump Tower. The Backbone Campaign and NYC allies marked the kickoff of a nationwide tour of a giant Donald Trump puppet head on December 30, 2017. (Photo: Erik McGregor / Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Since Trump’s election, the liberal media and much of the left have trained their fire on him, headlining daily his scandals, tweets and dysfunctional personality. Ironically, this is playing into Trump’s hands and helping the Republican Party, as it undermines the values that the left claims to champion.
MSNBC anchors such as Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Nicole Wallace arguably embody the problem most fully, perhaps because they are so creative, informed and dogged in their pursuit of the Trump house of cards. The brilliant investigative stories about Trump by The New York Times and The Washington Post also dominate the news and raise some of the same concerns.
So what is the problem? The anti-Trump narrative is that the president is unfit for office, a “child” whom the “adults” in the White House need to supervise full time. But who are these “adults?” They are the generals in Trump’s cabinet — John Kelly, Jim Mattis and H.R. McMaster — who spent much of their military career orchestrating disastrous wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The anti-Trump narrative, stressing the rationality and good judgment of these “adults,” tends to legitimate the worldview and behavior of the people responsible for so much of what is wrong with US foreign policy.
The problem is notable among the cable television commentators who tend to be former…