“We have a very crooked media,” said Donald Trump today in his speech at CPAC, by way of explaining his abysmal news coverage in the non-party-controlled press. And yet, toward the end of the rambling remarks, the president optimistically predicted that the media would eventually rally behind him. Not because his policies would be vindicated. But because of ratings:
Even the media. The media will absolutely support me sometime prior to the election. All those horrible people are going to support me. You know why? Because if somebody else won, the ratings would go down and they would all be out of business.
But for the news media to tilt its coverage in order to advance the financial interests of its owners would be totally corrupt! Crooked, even! Which is actually perfectly consistent with Trump’s view that the media is crooked. So it’s not a contradiction, after all. He believes the media will support his reelection, not despite being crooked, but exactly for that reason.
