Trump media attacks behaviour of a despot

The election of WWE wrestler known as Kane — real name Glenn Jacobs — as mayor of Tennessee’s third-largest county continues a theme of Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign.

The newly-elected mayor of Knox County said his decision to seek office was greeted with “pretty resounding laughter” by opponents.

Maybe they, like those who imagined Mr Trump might never be elected, focused on ‘Kane’ and forgot that the Republican Glenn Jacobs runs an insurance and real estate company. Both were underestimated.

It must be hoped, though, that the mayor of Knox Country does not use office to spread hate, doubt, and shameless dishonesty as his president does.

Mr Trump intensified his campaign against the media on Thursday night, criticising the press as “fake, fake, disgusting news” and describing journalists in attendance as “horrible, horrendous people”.

Mr Trump, immune to even the idea of shame, indulged in a 15-minute harangue against the press despite a UN warning that his behaviour puts journalists lives at risk. More than 70 journalists died doing their job last year.

Speaking, if that word is not hopelessly inadequate, in Wilkes-Barre, in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump listed a series of grievances with the press. Before he was finished, his audience directed angry chanting towards the media representatives at the rally. He forcefully attacked coverage of a range of issues including his 2016 victory, his meeting with Kim Jong-un, his meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, his meeting with Nato, and his meeting with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II last month. The tirade prompted wild applause, as did other denunciations, which Mr Trump persisted with despite widely-shared footage showing the crowd at a Trump rally in Florida on Tuesday using aggressive language and gestures towards a CNN correspondent.

On Thursday, Mr Trump pointed to the press area as he recalled the scepticism about his chances of victory in 2016.

“Even these people back there, these horrible, horrendous people” would have to agree “there has never been anything like what happened in November”, said Mr Trump.

He is right, of course, but for all the wrong reasons. It is tragic and dangerous that his despotic rants, his provocation of something that looks more and more like a mob, might succeed in neutralising one of the few pillars of American democracy that might hold him and his fantasies to account. Make no mistake, a dangerous Rubicon is being crossed.