Our most recent book, Divided We Stand, looks at the role of conservative media in the 2020 election. This segment of the press is just as significant in 2024. After the first indictment, it swung decisively for Trump.
Meeting with reporters Friday, Ron DeSantis blurted out something every Republican politician knows, but never says: Conservative media does not hold Republicans accountable. “He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the web sites, all the stuff — they just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers,” he said of Donald Trump. “And they don’t want to have their ratings go down.”
DeSantis is running through the bitter final days of an immensely disappointing presidential campaign that saw him transformed from the shining knight of the post-Trump party to a punch line. And so he is understandably lashing at at the conservative media, which is now operating mainly as a public-relations vehicle for the candidate who is destroying him.
Facing defeat, he is finally venting about Trump himself:
DeSantis: You can be the most worthless Republican in America, if you kiss the ring, Trump will say you are wonderful. pic.twitter.com/bfbOtN9n1D
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 15, 2024
