Trump Just Had The Worst Week Of His Presidency

(Cartoon image is by Nick Anderson of the Washington Post Writers Group.)

Donald Trump just had the worst week since he was sworn into office. He tried to separate immigrant parents and children to force Congress to build his $25 billion wall (even though undocumented immigration is at a 40 year low). It was a step too far, and both the press and the public expressed their outrage at Trump inhumanity. It got so bad that Trump did something he's never done before -- he rescinded the order. He didn't fix the situation, since thousands of children are still separated from their parents -- but he had to back down from his "zero tolerance" policy.

Here's just a small part of how Rick Wilson described it in The Daily Beast:

Donald Trump can’t define or pronounce the word Manichaean, but he knows it when he sees it. For Trump, there are two types of people; Donald Trump, and losers, and the one thing Donald Trump can’t abide is a loser. Donald Trump lost this week on immigration, and across the board. He lost, doubled down, lost again, hocked his cufflinks, lost, tried to flip the table and was finally escorted out of the casino and had his knees broken in the parking lot when he couldn’t pay his marker.

Donald Trump was defeated this week by the two things he hates most: immigrants, and the media. 

Donald Trump’s superpower has been a war with the media that keeps the Republican base locked down tight. His ability to make the press the enemy, to change any story of his failings, flailings, and fuckups into an account about the evil mainstream media hit a wall of kryptonite this week. 

Once a president who stood astride the media narrative like an orange god, simultaneously captivating and revolting the nation’s press corps, Trump was no match for images of crying children torn from their mothers. His seemingly magical ability to change the subject vanished, and the arsenal of his weapons of mass distraction were duds. Everyone in Washington noticed. One House member spoke to me on background Wednesday night and said, “This mistake broke the spell.”

Worse for Trump, the hated mainstream media flooded the zone, drilled into the story, and found sources to tell the horrific tales of the Trumpkampf against 2,500 immigrant children. Instead of taking the dumb, tendentious “But Obummer” bait, they asked the questions about what was happening now as a direct consequence of orders from this president’s administration. Dogged, passionate, and visceral coverage changed the climate. Trump is getting dragged and dragged hard.

The stories and the coverage combined two things; first, they exposed how gleefully the Trump Administration viewed the pain and fear of children. Second, they made Americans face what was being done in their name. 

It was in-depth coverage of the human tragedy of this policy, and it swept aside the usual dumb, bleating whataboutism that now comprises too much of conservative argument. It was a reminder for the people living in the Fox/Breitbart/talk radio bubble that the mainstream media’s power to illuminate stories can’t be spun away with the night-time lineup of Laura, Tucker, and Sean’s ham-like head filling the screen with a spittle-flecked rage.