Richard Nixon once gave a speech to the nation where he famously said, “I am not a crook.”  At the recent White House Correspondents Dinner, President Trump not in attendance, Bob Woodward and other media champions tried to tell the President, and the nation  “We are not fake news.”  In the long run, it’s hard to tell which phrase will be taken more seriously. 

Honestly, does anyone but the most dyed in the wool Democrat truly believe what the left leaning media has tried to bamboozle the American public with, during the first 100 days of the Trump Presidency?  Not likely all that many in the end.  Those who believe that Trump is Putin’s puppet now have little factual basis to do so other than the 89% negative reporting the left-wing media has been shoveling, so it’s a shallow belief at best, one that will change as facts come out, and as the Trump agenda is implemented.

I have a close friend who votes liberal, and has for as long as I can remember.  She loves her dogs.  Dogs that are not necessarily the most behaved pets in the world (an understatement).  I saw a meme on a social media forum that I shared with her.  It was a real photograph of a room left a mess, torn apart by two dogs.  They are facing the camera, the torn-up mess all around them.  Their faces look really guilty, while the printed caption on the picture had the dogs saying “The Russians Did it!”   When I shared the description, she laughed.  Sincerely, long and heartily.  She watches MSNBC a lot; it’s where she gets her news.

Donald Trump had a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday night.  It was an alternate to the Correspondents Dinner. Many Americans watching cable news saw split screen coverage of the two events; an arena packed with cheering ordinary folk and their president on one side, and tuxedos and ball gowns, dinner and wine, on the other.

Only one of those two events was successful, and contrary to what the New York Times implies, it wasn’t the Correspondents Dinner.  Boiling it down, all the media dinner could offer was “We are not fake news!”  Trump on the other hand, told those who were at his rally, and those watching all over the US what the administration had actually accomplished in the first 100 days, and what they were planning to do.

His speech was a mixture of many things.  One thing he did was to list what they had done , or started to do, in the first hundred days.   He also listed the many things he still intends to still do.  It was an impressively long list.  A big agenda, an ambitious attempt to accomplish what he had promised to do during the election campaign.  Needless to say, it was received well, as chants of USA!  USA! dominated the background.  The crowd was impressed, and shared their appreciation.

The bad news for the media is manifold.  First, the Trump voter is still heavily engaged.  Second, the list of what he has accomplished is actually kind of impressive.  Third, the media has reported very few of these accomplishments.  Fourth, compared to the rally, few watched their silly dinner.  Fifth, Trump trolled them masterfully by having his big rally on the same night so that split screens were inevitable.  (Don’t forget that Trump was a television producer, big time.) Sixth, Trump is winning the narrative.  While he is getting things done, the media looks like the dogs in the meme picture saying, “The Russians did it!”

He rattled off an impressive list of accomplishments, he called it “Historic progress”.  He reminded the crowd of the “Historic mess they inherited”.   He intertwined what he had done, with what they were doing, along with the big problems they were tackling.  It was a pretty impressive performance from someone who has not been considered a great orator.   What was more important, it communicated well to his loyal voters, and formed a basis for overcoming the monstrously negative coverage being shoveled by the mainstream media.

What Trump did at the rally, besides troll the media, was to again set the narrative that he is winning.  A recent poll has Americans believing him, by a fairly large margin, over the mainstream media.  And this was before this rally.  Before the list of accomplishments, largely previously unreported, was given in his speech.

The media at their dinner that same night looked small, impotent, and lost.  They tried to justify themselves to themselves and hoped the nation was paying attention.  An article in the New York Times claims “attendees said the often-frivolous dinner felt oddly profound…. [T]he event became a catharsis for a political press corps that has faced months of unrelenting strain.”   Oh, boo hoo, that poor beleagueredmedia being less believed than that scurrilous Trump whom they hate so much.  For the record, calling out Bannon as Hitler, and Sessions as racist gave their event negative gravitas.  By not booing off stage Hasan Minhaj, who riffed on those themes, they just confirmed how foolish and small they all looked.

They dug their own graves by their misreporting, and trying to peddle an unsustainable false narrative.  Oh, the guilty look on those dogs’ faces.  It was so there at the Correspondents Dinner. 

Having watched and admired President Reagan, I remember watching as he went over the heads of the media to persuade the American people to help push his vision for the country.   He was quite simply, as good as it gets at articulately presenting his ideas.  This Trump rally was very different, Trump is many things, but he does not have the same eloquence Reagan did.  He is not as polished.  But here’s the bottom line: he is every bit as effective as Reagan so far.  He is every bit as good at getting his message across to his targets

“What is happening is profound.  Trump is succeeding mainly because he is following up on his many promises.   It’s why 93% of his voters approve of the job he is doing in a poll done just before his hundred days rally.   I will be surprised if he doesn’t gain a percentage or more back in the next week and beyond.   In spite of the best efforts of the leftist media, they are failing, and it’s precisely because of what they tried to sell themselves at the correspondents dinner:  they really have become fake news.  Bannon is Hitler and Jeff Sessions is racist. And they just sit there, laugh, and applaud.

I remember well the narrative that claimed Reagan was an amiable dunce, a dolt, one who was no better than a napping actor.  Today President Trump is facing something of a replay of that time.  The things Trump is doing, his list, are similar to the things that Reagan did.  They will bring real, tangible benefits to the country.   And this is why the media is on the process of losing.  Trump looks good, and is accomplishing real, substantial things while the leftist media messes up the room.