Someone should tell Donald Trump that he is the president. He won the election. Someone should also tell him that the media, which he really, really doesn’t like, is literally the only reason anyone knows he exists or listens to anything that he says, ever. After today’s nightmare press conference, which was mostly about — you guessed it — how bad the media sucks, Trump’s team has now released a survey about “Mainstream Media Accountability.”
It starts out sort of weird but okay with slow-burners like “Do you believe that the mainstream media has reported unfairly on our movement?” (It’s strange to call your deal a “movement” when you’re the president, right?) But it quickly unravels into extremely rude and downright terrifying territory. “Do you believe that the media unfairly reported on President Trump’s executive order temporarily restricting people entering our country from nations compromised by radical Islamic terrorism?” Yes. That is a bad question. But it’s followed up by a worse question: “Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported President Trump’s temporary restriction executive order?” And then a worse one: “Do you believe that political correctness has created biased news coverage on both illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism?” Help.
As a rational person, trying to fill this survey out is very difficult because the questions are constructed so poorly, it’s hard to tell which answers reflect one’s actual opinions. But if you’re going to try, here’s a preview of some of the other great questions:
- Do you trust Fox News to report fairly on Trump’s presidency?
- On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply.)
- Do you believe that political correctness has created biased news coverage on both illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism?
- Do you believe that contrary to what the media says, raising taxes does not create jobs?
- Do you believe that the media has been far too quick to spread false stories about our movement?
- Do you believe that the media creates false feuds within our Party in order to make us seem divided?
- Do you agree with President Trump’s media strategy to cut through the media’s noise and deliver our message straight to the people?
