This whole crowd size thing has heartened me, actually. During the campaign, when the media was pouring tankers of gasoline onto the Turmp garbage fire, I really didn’t think about how that same media would treat him once he won.
But of course, “omg Turmp might become president” is no longer a story. Pretending that Turmp and the GOP could somehow be seen as acceptable is no longer the way to generate news-hungry panic. And on a personnel level, Turmp has already actively burned bridges with 90% of the news industry, with no sign that he’s able or willing to stop. The next four years could make the press’s alleged hostility to Nixon look like a Sylvanian Families yiffing party.
And I’m not talking about wordy, scolding editorials no Turmp supporter will ever read. I’m talking about stuff like that before-and-after photo with the white tarps, and those videos of sad empty bleachers. I think that sort of image control is highly effective on Turmp’s supporters (and so does he, which is why he cares), and the news industry has armies of people who are extremely good at it. It’s sort of like Gargamel picking a fight with Satan.
