Donald Trump has been the gift that keeps on giving for mainstream media — a true headline creating machine. Trump’s cartoonishly awful antics are arguably the most talked about part of the entire upcoming presidential race, which is still almost an entire year away.
While it seems logical that acting like an obtuse bigot would squash anyone’s chances of becoming president, this year has shown us that the more vocally ignorant and absurd Trump becomes, the more fanatical his voter base becomes, even as the left takes him less and less seriously with every outburst.
This combination of dismissal from the left and passionate response from the far right is incredibly dangerous. Most recently, a similar political atmosphere led to the election of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, who recently touted Donald Trump as “brilliant.” In response, Maria Alekhina of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot gave the following warning during an interview with the Huffington Post:
“When Putin came to his first term or second term, nobody [in Russia] actually thought that this is serious. Everybody was joking about it. And nobody could imagine that after five, six years, we would have a war in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea, and these problems in Syria.”
I love how everyone is obsessed with Donald Trump hosting #SNL ignoring that their musical guest is Pussy Riot.
— Adam Cozens (@AdamCozens27) November 8, 2015
Alekhina pointed out that the mainstream media’s obsession with Donald Trump not only spreads his poisonous point of view, but normalizes and makes light of it.
“It’s a very short way from joke to sad reality when you have a really crazy president speaking about breaking every moral and logic norm.”
This a warning Americans should take seriously, especially as Trump has publicly stated that he is “honored” to have been called brilliant by Putin, and has defended Russia’s infamously dictatorial president against allegations that he’s silencing members of the media. The U.S. presidential election is still 11 months away, so it’s still not too late for America to drop Donald Trump, and perhaps tire of his brand entirely, but only time will tell.
Featured image via screen grab
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