No, Trump, the media is not rigged. You’re just losing.
A significant dip in nearly every major poll has Republican nominee Donald Trump floundering. His latest call-outs have been toward Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and the media at large.
Although Republicans have complained about the press before, Trump is doing much more than alleging a lack of objectivity.
Trump has gone beyond the notion that journalists inherently favor one candidate or party more and has begun simply equating politics with journalism. Every day, another tweet or speech by Trump accuses the media of being in cahoots with Clinton.
Trump’s claims of this systematic fraud have no backing and, if they were true, would completely abolish the legitimacy and legacy of the news industry as a whole. According to Trump, newsrooms and media outlets are now simply another lobbyist group.
Now trailing Clinton by a considerable margin in most polls, Trump has seemingly no one to blame but outlets like CNN, or the “Clinton News Network,” as he calls it. Allegations of sexual assault, the true reason for Trump’s decline in the polls, are made up of “completely false allegations and outright lies,” by his claims.
Many journalists and newsrooms probably do dislike Trump for his campaign’s relentless media criticism and his constant mocking and incitement of attacks against journalists like Katy Tur and Serge Kovaleski. His clear lack of relationships with members of the media have even caused some to question the future of journalism, should he be elected. However, these journalists are mature enough to forgo their own bias and do their job professionally.
Still, in true Trump fashion, he recently claimed the media is “making our country sick.” He has vowed to stop it, but, much like stopping ISIS, he has not said how he intends to.
It makes sense that Trump would perceive the media as rigged after hosting his own rigged competition show, “Celebrity Apprentice.” In the 2015 season of the show, Trump unfairly fired Kenya Moore in what was clearly a biased and unfair decision based on trivialities. In fact, every decision on the show is a subjective decision he makes, as other contestants have also been fired for personal reasons.
However, the whole world does not operate like Trump’s “Apprentice” boardroom.
While there is an entertainment factor in the goings-on of newsrooms, they are still a business after all, and journalists do not simply pick whatever reality they want to portray.
Unfortunately for Trump and his disillusioned supporters, reality is not in his favor, and neither is comedy. “Saturday Night Live” has done hilarious reenactments of both debates thus far, but butt-of-the-joke Trump is not laughing.
While Trump has appeared on the show twice in previous years and spoke highly of SNL both times, he accused the last show of doing a “hit job” on him.
Trump needs to learn that no journalist, show, network or media conglomerate is actively working to “rig” the election. Like a child, Trump will continue to blame others when the only entity there is to blame for his poor reputation is himself.
Ryan Thaxton is a 20-year-old sophomore from Monroe, Louisiana.