July 16th, 2019

In a segment on The Daily Show, aired the day after Donald Trump literally tweeted that a group of elected Congress women should "go back to where they came from,” Trever Noah skewered Trump’s answers to questions from various reporters. While the President’s answers were, of course, absolutely infuriating (in that they demonstrate that he IS dog-whistling to white-nationalists, and that they ARE his base), it’s the framing of the questions that show us why the media share culpability in his election.

Even after saying that a group of elected congresswomen should "go back to where they came from,” the media still feel the need to hedge away from stating the obvious. Pay attention to the fact that the question is "does it concern you that many people saw that tweet as racist?” — and not something like “why are you making these racist attacks?” They simply refuse to operate from the premise that Donald Trump is racist - instead they just relitigate the premise (“is he racist?”) over and over again in paralysis-inducing fashion.

This is how fake news gets elevated. Not by incendiary conspiracy theories being passed around on social media, but in the fact that no matter what, the corporate media will never call balls and strikes.

And in addition, as Trevor Noah points out, the mere fact that “many people agree” with Trump doesn’t mean he’s not racist. In fact, the people who agree with him are the racists that he is ginning up to re-elect him.