A dangerous return to denial: Trump's threats against Biden met by familiar media shrug

A dangerous return to denial: Trump's threats against Biden met by familiar media shrug
One of the many reasons why the mainstream news media has lost credibility with huge swaths of the public

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
Senior Writer
PUBLISHED APRIL 4, 2024 5:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Donald Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be a very dangerous man. As seen on Jan. 6 with his coup attempt and the lethal assault by his MAGA followers on the Capitol, he appears to have an erotic attachment to violence.

Last Friday, Trump shared an image of President Biden bound and gag, hog-tied, in the back of a pickup truck. Michael Tyler, who is the Biden campaign’s communications director, condemned Trump’s most recent threat. “[He] is regularly inciting political violence, and it's time people take him seriously — just ask the Capitol police officers who were attacked protecting our democracy on January 6. Donald Trump is perfectly comfortable with violence when he thinks it benefits him. In fact, he encourages it. Put simply, his campaign is about itself. It's about revenge. It's about retribution….Political violence has been and continues to be central to Donald Trump's brand of politics.”

In a video post on X/Twitter historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who is one of the world’s leading experts on fascism and authoritarianism, offered this context: "Being life-size, this image is allowing Americans to imagine a fate that Biden would have if he were removed in a violent way….And so it's continuing the coup of January 6."

....(snip)....

Predictably, Donald Trump’s threats of murder and other violence against President Biden are now being mostly ignored and willfully forgotten by the mainstream news media. By mostly ignoring Trump and his agent’s and followers’ threats of (and real acts of) violence against President Biden, leading Democrats, and other people deemed to be the “enemy”, the mainstream news media is enabling and encouraging such behavior – and by implication undermining American democracy and civil society. .............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/04/04/a-return-to-denial-against-biden-met-by-familiar-media-shrug/