Analysis: When leaders refuse to leave the stage, it creates more problems than it solves
Every few decades a new president appears from nowhere. He usually delivers promises that do little to improve the daily lives of Americans, but does plenty for the news and media to use to attack his policies.
The next new president may not be new at all.
For all the hand-wringing about how Trump is unique, what truly has set him apart from the past is his unwillingness to let go of the spotlight and the power of his position. This has already cost him in the news media. According to a September poll by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center, only 43 percent of Americans trust press leaders to accurately report on what is really happening. And according to the survey, only 46 percent of Americans believe the public has an accurate understanding of what is going on in Washington.
And if it can get worse, it will.
The Washington Post reported that Trump is so obsessed with holding on to the spotlight that he has repeatedly ordered aides to draft tweets to counter any negative stories or critical stories on his campaign. Those tweets have included orders to block negative stories about his policies in the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune.
One of the biggest problems facing the Trump administration is that too many in the media are treating them as if they were the press secretary.
The New York Times has published a column by Pulitzer-winning columnist David Brooks decrying the media for their coverage of Trump, and calling the coverage “incoherent, incoherent, incoherent” in the latest edition. “The point,” Brooks wrote, “is that Trump is an outsider with a record of being in the White House for nearly a quarter-century.”
But Trump is not an outsider with one quarter-century of experience in the White House. According to the New York Times, Trump has been in the White House for 20.0 years, and has never worked behind the scenes or in the shadows.
Then there are the media’s own
