What the Media Doesn't Get About Donald Trump

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There was big fuss in the media over the weekend about Donald Trump’s remarks on Sen. John McCain. The comments that McCain is “not a war hero… because he was captured” were, to be sure, unkind to the point of stupidity. On Sunday, both CNN’s Reliable Sources and Fox News’s Media Buzz did stories about how Trump’s candidacy might be doomed if he doesn’t apologize for this and other statements that the establishment media consider impolitic gaffes.

The Huffington Post announced on Friday that it would henceforth put its Trump campaign coverage “in our Entertainment section.” Do you think Donald Trump is troubled by this? He wants to entertain his supporters.

The New York Times on Monday ran a lengthy piece fretting that Trump “faces a moment of real reckoning” if he doesn’t start to make nice after his previous statements about illegal immigration and whatever else pops into his head. This is a complete misreading of Trump’s appeal. But then, the Times also wrote that Trump didn’t become a celebrity until The Apprentice. I guess no one there ever saw him on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Nanny, Home Alone 2, and in media appearances like this 1987 episode of Late Night With David Letterman, in which the host says presciently, “You act like you’re running for something.”

Most of the media seems perplexed, baffled, even annoyed that Trump has garnered so much attention with no sign of wearing out his welcome with the public. Why is Trump confounding to reporters, editors, and cable-news outlets? Because he does not back down. Because he does not apologize.

Don’t underestimate the appeal of this. We live in a culture now where everyone is hyper-aware of giving offense. It is commonly thought that if you hurt any citizen’s feelings or if your comment is perceived as insulting by someone else, you are at fault, and you must apologize as soon as possible. The result? It’s as though everyone in the public eye has assumed a permanent posture: the defensive crouch, ready to yell a hasty, “I’m sorry!” and then run away until the heat dies down. Over the weekend, Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley issued an apology for saying “All lives matter” at a gathering of liberal activists, because he said it in response to protestors who had interrupted with the chant “Black lives matter.” “All lives matter” seems like a fairly reasonable comment that could have been contextualized by O’Malley, but instead he took the hasty-apology route.

This attitude toward the merest hint of offensiveness extends into show business, to be sure. It’s the main reason Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have said they no longer have any interest in performing on college campuses, because between liberal political-correctness and conservative sensitivity or rage at the expression of any liberal opinion, we’re grooming generations of college grads, many of whom will be intolerant of listening to any opinion other than the mannerly, assiduously inoffensive ones they’re taught it’s safe to hold.

American pop culture — which, let’s face it, has become not merely the political culture but perhaps even American culture itself — rewards and encourages celebrities and the characters they portray who have a slight rebel streak, who project an image of independence. It’s why big chunks of America sided with Robert Mitchum when the actor was arrested for marijuana possession in 1948, why good ol’ Jimmy Stewart became a populist hero when he played the one-man-going-against-the-establishment political candidate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, why people adore Bill Murray’s hey-I’ll-do-whatever-I-want approach to conducting a show-business career, and why Miley Cyrus, for her various stage antics, had at least as many people who think she’s bold and transgressive as those who find her ridiculous or appalling. Hey, Murray even remarked on his fondness for Cyrus at Comic-Con.

Trump, in his beetle-browed, hectoring way, has staked a claim as the Guy Who Stands by What He Says, even if what he says is offensive or absurd. Mind you, I’m not taking sides here. Other than knowing he’s aggressively pro-business, neither I or anyone else knows what Trump’s positions are on most issues (he conveniently has issued no formal policy statements), so I’m not pro-Trump. I didn’t even much like The Apprentice, except when Gilbert Gottfried was on it.

But I think I do understand the nature of his appeal. There’s a strong element of disgust and weariness over what many people see as spinelessness on the part of famous people, and constant over-policing of What Is Acceptable by factions on both the left and the right. And so right now, everyone is saying Donald Trump’s candidacy is in jeopardy because of the McCain insult. But does this render Trump any less of a viable candidate than, say, Rick Perry, who’s already lost one primary and exists primarily in the media as the punchline of a clueless-campaigner joke? As Trump said to the Times on Monday, “I mean, Rick Perry — give me a break here.”

In a political season that has already seen extensive complaints from the media about Hillary Clinton’s reluctance to grant interviews and a crowded Republican field that is finding it difficult for individual candidates to stand out from the pack, Trump is a Republican who’s not just running like an Independent — he’s operating like a maverick, like some obscure character from The Avengers, his armor a business-suit with a flaming-red necktie. Just like in the comic books, he’s the Ant-Man who’s become Giant Man.