So much for that “sad day for our country” narrative

| 9:00 pm EDT June 1, 2024
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Back when Donald Trump was being criminally indicted, we had to listen to the people on MSNBC and CNN talk in unanimous fashion about how it was a “sad day for our country” that a former President was being indicted, while lecturing us about how no one should be taking pleasure in it. The whole thing was bizarre.

It was clear they’d all been told to go with this absurd “sad day for our country” narrative, and when that happens, it’s because the corporate bosses have concluded that it’s the narrative that the largest number of viewers are going to want to hear. In other words, these networks guessed that most people weren’t ready for the notion that a career criminal like Trump being indicted was a good thing.

But when Trump was criminally convicted this week, we didn’t see any of that. There was no gloating from anyone on either channel. They clearly weren’t allowed to show any joy or even satisfaction at the prospect of a career criminal being duly convicted. But the “sad day for our country” narrative was notably missing.

Somewhere between the time Trump was indicted and the time he was convicted, the corporate media overlords apparently concluded that the American public was indeed looking at Trump differently. It was no longer a sad story about a U.S. President getting indicted. It was now a neutral story about a career criminal, who used to be a U.S. President, being held accountable.

While the mainstream media’s take on these kinds of stories often dictates public opinion, the media’s take is just as often a result of public opinion. The media is trying to guess what the largest chunk of the public is going to respond to, because ratings are successfully achieved with large numbers.

So it’s notable that, if nothing else, the media now thinks that the general public is over the whole “sad day for our country” nonsense that dominated the airwaves a year ago, and that the public now indeed just sees Donald Trump as a criminal. That’s an important step forward for the country.