The New York Times ran a piece earlier this week on the “5 Moments That Defined Trump’s Record on Immigration.” The piece is a Rorschach Test that determines where on the political spectrum one views former President Donald Trump from. It provides something for everyone, whether they love or loathe the former president.
The “listicle” was penned by none other than Maggie Haberman, the Times journalist known for winning a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the Russia collusion hoax as well as her notoriously close ties to Trump, whom she described as “my curse and my salvation” in a Politico profile. Trump himself reportedly admitted, “I love being with her. She’s like my psychiatrist,” and the two have talked “countless” times since he first came down the gilded escalator in 2015.
Their professional lives are co-dependent, and thus they represent a microcosm of Trump’s broader relationship with the corporate media. For Haberman, her “love-hate” experience covering Trump “was the most competitive beat in American journalism, and she was, by any objective measure, the dominant reporter,” according to Jonathon Swan, another prominent White House reporter. Her coverage of Trump brought her relevance and prestige among industry colleagues, as well as a hefty salary bump from the Times, in all likelihood.
The article summarizes five hallmarks of the Trump administration’s immigration policy: the early travel ban, the wall, so-called family separation, border surges, and the Covid-era travel restrictions. All have been exhaustively debated to the point that it is futile to waste words re-litigating them here; whether for good or bad, Haberman is right that they undeniably defined immigration policy in the Trump era.
If you despise Trump and all that he stands for, these “cruel” policies will conjure in your mind the evil he embodies and the little that stands between his re-election in 2024. If you love Trump and yearn for his return, these policies will reassure you that salvation is possible after years of effectively open borders. This, in fact, is the point. (RELATED: Joe Scarborough Claims Trump Thinks Of Conservative Voters As ‘Backwater Redneck Republicans’)
Like Haberman, the Times and the broader corporate media have a love-hate relationship with Trump. On the one hand, they truly detest him, his supporters, and their traditionalist worldview that stands antagonistically against their own shared dreams of progressive utopia. Yet they just can’t quit him. Trump’s campaign is the source of their continued relevance in an over-saturated media ecosystem; he is the legacy of the legacy media. For this reason, they believe that Trump must remain in the headlines for the next year and a half at least.
Such perception-based coverage of Trump galvanizes his base and infuriates his enemies. It gives everyone a greater reason to turn out while further dividing the country along increasingly insurmountable perceived realities. (RELATED: ‘Ron’s Magic Is Gone!’: Trump Takes Aim At DeSantis Over Election Results In Kentucky, Jacksonville)
After years, reporters must realize that their hysterical coverage actually leads Trump’s supporters to rally around him in an ever-stronger defense. After all, left-wing reporters are malicious – not stupid. Much ink has been spilled prevaricating on the latest round of attacks being part of a larger electoral strategy to boost Trump in the primaries, but make him so unpopular with independents that he cannot win in the general. But why would the media powers-that-be want him to lose? In all likelihood, the tone and tenor of their coverage is about ratings, subscribers, and advertisers – and not much more. (RELATED: How The Jury Decision Against Trump Fits Into The Left’s 2024 Election Strategy)
Left-wing media executives and high profile reporters like Haberman may feign to loathe Trump, but in reality would be thrilled if he received another four years in office. While Haberman was raking in the Pulitzers, the Times gained nearly 5 million digital subscribers. Similarly, CNN lost nearly 50% of its target primetime audience after Trump left office, but its ratings briefly shot back up for the Trump town hall last week.
In an age of increasingly digital and independent media, legacy outlets are no longer guaranteed an esteemed spot in the industry. They may hate Trump on principle, but their survival depends on keeping Trump relevant and both sides entrenched. Don’t give them so much credit – who really thinks they’ll give all that up out of principle?