CNN‘s homepage an hour after Trump’s speech was uniformly positive.
What came to be known as the “expectations game” during the George W. Bush years was wielded with notorious cynicism. In those days, the assumption behind this game was that Bush was a bumbling doofus who could hardly string together a coherent sentence, so if he got to the level of a high school debate, media chalked it up as a “win.”
The game, successfully rebooted by Donald Trump over the past 18 months, was in full play during Trump’s February 28 speech to Congress: So long as Trump wasn’t his petulant, incoherent, race-baiting self, it would be considered a victory for the 45th president.
“That was a Reaganesque moment for Trump,” congressional bureau chief for Politico John Bresnahan said in reference to Trump praising the widow of the Navy SEAL sent to an early grave by Trump’s botched Yemen raid—along with six women and ten children under the age of 13, including a US citizen (Intercept, 3/9/17). “‘Etched into eternity.’ What a moment,” Bresnahan’s colleague Tim Alberta salivated, quoting Trump’s self-serving praise of the fallen sailor.
Extreme centrist Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza lavished praise on Trump on both social and traditional media. He insisted on Twitter, “This was the best speech Trump has given since he became a candidate in June 2015.” He followed with two glowing articles, “What That Moment With the Wife of a Slain Navy SEAL Proves About Donald Trump” (2/28/17) and “Winners and Losers From President Trump’s Big Speech to Congress” (2/28/17), which he posted to Twitter with what seemed like a ready-made gif of Trump “dropping the mic”—a pop culture cliche for giving a successful speech.
“This speech is [the] clearest example Trump is beginning to own and understand the powers of the office,” said Time White House correspondent Zeke Miller. His colleague, Time Washington bureau chief Michael Scherer, breathlessly added, “This speech is the best sign yet that Donald Trump can learn how to use the power of his office.”
“This is the best morning of Donald Trump’s presidency,” Washington Post White House bureau chief Philip Rucker added. “He is basking in positive pundit reviews. All that tumult feels like yesteryear.”
CNN liberal Van Jones (2/28/17) couldn’t help gushing about how “presidential” Trump had been when he made political hay out of a massacre of civilians:
That was one of the most extraordinary moments you have ever seen in American politics, period. And he did something extraordinary. And for people who have been hoping that he would become unifying, hoping that he might find some way to become presidential, they should be happy with that moment….
Now, there was a lot that he said in that speech that was counterfactual, that was not right, that I oppose and will oppose. But he did something tonight that you cannot take away from him. He became president of the United States.
Trump was, of course, already the president—a fact that has left millions of Muslims, Latino immigrants, women and LGBTQs at risk or under siege.
Tone was elevated above all. The BBC (3/1/17), US News (3/1/17), NPR (2/28/17) and MSN (3/1/17) all used the cliche “Kinder, Gentler Trump” to describe the speech. NBC’s Chuck Todd tweeted, “He’s hitting the same issues and themes he talks about at rallies, but this is the first time he’s used a different tone to sell his agenda.”
The New York Times (2/28/17) even gave Trump a pat on the head for “following the written text on the teleprompters more closely than any major speech of his presidency.”
The praise from the media for his speech was so overwhelming, Trump reportedly delayed the roll out of his “travel ban” (his new attempt to legalize a ban on Muslims) so he could soak in all the goodwill.
The consistent theme in all praise of Trump, it’s worth highlighting, was that it was entirely superficial. Vague notions of “optimism,” “kinder” tones and, above all, the DC fetish for being “presidential” won the day. On substance—as some less credulous critics pointed out (e.g., New York Times, 3/1/17; Think Progress, 3/1/17)—the Trump presidency remains unchanged.
