Media Exhaustion May Be All Trump Needs to Squeak Out a Win in 2024
While journalists hem and haw over how best to cover Trump’s threats to democracy, there’s another question that needs asking: Is anyone even paying attention?
Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
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Exhaustion with the near-constant flood of headlines about Donald Trump is leading many to simply tune out of the news cycle entirely, according to Daily Beast media reporter Justin Baragona, who joins The New Abnormal to discuss how the news media is dealing with the former president’s repeated threats to upend American democracy.
The irony of the situation is that exhaustion can only help Trump in his quest to win re-election—and enact retribution against those who he feels have wronged him.
“I think there’s a real disconnect here,” Baragona said. “I don’t know if the average person is going to be convinced to care [about the danger of a second Trump term] because the zone has been so flooded already.”
“There’s not gonna be this breakthrough moment, where a piece of reporting or the way a cable news segment is framed actually makes a difference, because the proverbial die has already been cast,” he added. “The story has already been framed in a certain way by right-wing media … [and any further coverage] just feeds into the exhaustion already of the never-ending Trump news cycle, which a lot of people are just kind of tuned out of.”
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Plus! Daily Beast political reporter Riley Rogerson joins the podcast to discuss Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) falling political fortunes—and her recent decision to switch districts.
“A fair question, and I think it’s really the crux of what’s interesting about this race, is we’re going to find out if her baggage is severe enough and off-putting enough that Republicans don’t go for her and pick someone else,” Rogerson said. “It’ll be a question for these Republican voters—do they trade that star power for the baggage?”
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.
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