Here we go again. It’s time to “check in” with the Trump voter.
This time, The New York Times has delivered yet another installment of something the mainstream media produces like clockwork. Every few months, some Beltway journalist or corporate pundit treks to a diner, or gathers a focus group, to ask the cult — “Are you still happy with your vote for Donald Trump?”
Predictably, the answers stay the same. Regardless of how much chaos, corruption, or destruction unfolds, the faithful Trumpanzee responds with some version of “yes.” Maybe lukewarm, maybe conditional — but always yes.
The Problem Isn’t the Answers
These stories are more than repetitive. They’re dangerous. Because the problem isn’t simply the answers Trump voters give — it’s the questions themselves.
By treating Trumpism as a cultural curiosity instead of an existential threat to democracy, the corporate press sanitizes extremism. Every one of these focus-group features tacitly suggests that giving a lawless wannabe-dictator the power to end the American experiment for good is just one way some voters engage in civic life.
There’s Nothing Left to “Unpack”
From the moment Trump descended that golden escalator calling Mexicans rapists to the day he incited a violent mob to storm the U.S. Capitol, his agenda has been clear. Yet the media persists in normalizing this.
We don’t need more insight into the so-called “Trump voter.” We need accountability for those who enabled this ongoing national crisis — and for the journalists who sanewash the madness and give cover to its enablers.
Normalizing Destruction
Every glossy Times feature that invites Trump’s base to explain themselves in friendly, non confrontational terms does more than misinform, it launders complicity.
There were no post-election diner spotlights on Democratic voters during Biden’s term asking how they felt about having a president who actually honored his oath to the Constitution instead of calling to cancel it. Now, we get endless treatments of authoritarian supporters treated as ordinary Americans with “economic anxieties.” It’s never how we help democracy survive — it’s always, normaling fascism’s fans.
The Only Question Worth Asking
After everything America has endured thanks to the convicted felon Trump voters empowered — the corruption, the lies, the (arguably ongoing) coup attempt, the battered and broken institutions — only one question remains worth asking the Trump voter — What the Hell is wrong with you people?
Not “Are you still happy with your vote?” Not “Do you still think he’s fighting for you?” But: Do you have any shame? Do you have any decency?
This isn’t normal politics. It’s moral collapse. And the more the media treats it like just another partisan disagreement, the closer authoritarianism moves to the mainstream.
A Press That Enables, Not Informs
Trump left office with the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover, added $8 trillion to the national debt, hoarded classified documents in his bathroom, and wracked up indictments like that was his job. Yet the media keeps asking about “faith” in his leadership — as if the word applies to a man who wouldn’t recognize truth unless if it came wrapped in a gold-plated bribe.
This is how mainstream journalism is failing us in this critical moment — by giving fascism uncritical space and calling it “informative.”
History’s Mirror
Imagine we were living in 1930s Germany listening to a Hitler voter (when Germans still had the right to vote, before Hitler took it away) say, “I don’t hate Jews and I have nothing against them. I am a nice person — a Christian even — but I believe Hitler is doing great things for the economy. I don’t condone everything he says and does, but he still has my vote.” That’s what every Republican who still supports Trump sounds like to anyone with a love of America and a clue. That’s the mirror we’re looking into today.
I’ve said for years that one day, those who cheered for Trump will only speak of it in whispers, just like the “good Germans” after World War II. That day is approaching. In the meantime, these periodic check-ins with the Trump supporters are a dereliction of journalistic duty at the least. They're not illuminating — they're enabling.
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