Donald Trump, a colostomy bag dipped in bronzer, is a bully with scant self-awareness who needs to be reminded who he is in the most frank terms. It didn’t stun me that the favored son of a privileged family (Hi, Jeb!) didn’t know how to disarm a bully. He hasn’t had the practice. It did shock me, though, when in the wake of disgraceful comments about Mexicans at the outset of his campaign that he was treated by the media as merely a harmless joke. A joke, okay, but someone making fascistic comments isn’t funny. Aspiring despots often initially come across as vulgar clowns. You deal with them early and often.

The interview that peeved me most early on was conducted by Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who matched the hideous hotelier in buffoonery when she portrayed him as a somewhat naughty great-uncle instead of a deeply bigoted demagogue. The Economist Q&A that followed in its wake was likewise far too friendly, if not as clueless. Not even Trump mocking POWs and the disabled was enough to fully stifle the press guffaws. It’s taken talk of a Muslim ban and internment camps to finally awaken some commentators. This poor journalistic performance isn’t necessarily responsible for Trump’s ascension in the polls, but it’s poor, nonetheless.

From Kia Makarechi at Vanity Fair:

Trump on Tuesday abruptly canceled a pre-planned interview with Yahoo’s Katie Couric. The interview was previously scheduled for Wednesday. He has also generally increased his rhetoric on the media, which he regularly describes as mostly made up of “scum.” At Monday’s rally, he described an NBC reporter in the crowd as “third-rate,” and encouraged the audience to boo her.

These changes come amid much hand-wringing within the media itself. Journalists have noted repeatedly in recent weeks that Trump appears to be completely resistant to fact-checking. He bandies about the false claim that he saw New Jersey Muslims celebrate the 9/11 attacks on TV, despite being rebuked by former officials and fact-checkers. Coverage of prior shocking incidents has generally corresponded with a bump in his poll numbers. Some wonder whether the media’s treatment of Trump as an entertaining curiosity allowed his haphazard campaign to coalesce into a viable candidacy, but that’s a hard claim to prove or disprove. 

The Morning Joe snafu and [Arianna] Huffington’s change of heart might indicate a souring mood, but they’re hardly cutting the air off of Trump’s visibility. CNN carried Trump’s Monday night rally live. Fox News’s Greta van Susteren interviewed him shortly after his proposal was published. In addition to his nearly 30-minute Morning Joe appearance, Trump also called into Good Morning America on Tuesday.

The idea that Trump has suddenly crossed some decency line is also tenuous: the man built his campaign for the White House on half-truths and impossible-to-enact proposals.•