“What are Trump voters thinking?”
“How do Trump voters feel?”
“How does this play with Trump voters?”
It has been 16 years and four presidential elections since the Republican nominee attracted the support of a majority of American voters. That is a generous interpretation of recent Republican failure and yet it is completely factual. But to look at the mainstream media, you would have a completely different interpretation.
In the mainstream press, Donald Trump’s successful campaign for the Republican nomination was an excuse for profile after profile of the Trump voter. His victory in the electoral college, even as nearly 3 million more votes went for Hillary Clinton, was another excuse for more lengthy profiles and examinations of Trump voters. The New York Times even devoted time to profiling Nazis, in a story originally headlined, “In America’s Heartland, the Nazi Sympathizer Next Door.”
As time went on and Trump consistently proved to be unpopular — his aggregate approval rating never got above 50% — the press continued to plug away at profiling Trump supporters. Every misstep and disastrous decision he made in the presidency was greeted with another journalistic adventure into a diner that was inevitably packed with Trump voters who still backed Trump.
Communities who opposed Trump, particularly black and brown communities that were directly in his sights and harmed by his behavior, were given short shrift. Nevermind his attacks on black athletes protesting police brutality. Nevermind his administration’s choice to rip immigrant families apart and put refugees in the clutches of drug gangs. What the press in America obsessively needed to know was how Trump voters feel about everything.
The 2020 election is in the history books. Joe Biden received at least 78.7 million votes. Each vote came from Americans who ignored the media’s obsessive coverage of the right to express their support for progressive policies and against Trump.
So of course the media is still focusing on Trump voters. The L.A. Times turned its letters page over to Trump voters. ABC’s This Week featured Trump voters in complete denial of reality who say they don’t believe Biden won.
A diverse coalition of Americans voted for Biden. The media isn’t covering them. They are again being erased from the story and pushed to the side.
To the mainstream press, only white conservatives who back Trump matter. Everyone else is invisible.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.