It Was Trump Who Normalized The Alt-Right (More Properly Known as White Supremacists) Not The Mainstream Media

David Harsanyi, senior editor of The Federalist, has a piece at NRO in which he blames the mainstream media for normalizing the so-called Alt-Right (who are really white supremacists):

Why does the March for Life, a rally that attracts tens of thousands of anti-abortion Americans to Washington, D.C., every year get less prominent media coverage than a fringe neo-Nazi gathering? Because institutional media and white nationalists have formed a politically convenient symbiotic relationship.

For Jew-hating racists, the attention means they can playact as a viable and popular movement with pull in Washington. In return, many in the media get to confirm their own biases and treat white supremacy as if it were the secret ingredient to Republican success.

Meanwhile, this obsessive coverage of the alt-right not only helps mainstream a small movement but it’s also exactly what the bigots need and want to grow.

Harsanyi is certainly correct that the mainstream media has its own agenda in its coverage of the so-called Alt-Right. It is an opportunity for them to make a blanket statement about conservatives and conservatism. If you talk to those who work in the mainstream media there is no meaningful difference between John Kasich and David Duke.


But let's put the blame where it belongs. It wasn't the mainstream media who normalized the so-called Alt-Right, it was President-Elect Trump.


It was President-Elect Trump who repeatedly refused to condemn David Duke last spring.


It was President-Elect Trump who saw fit to retweet messages written by the so-called Alt-Right.


It was President-Elect Trump who said a federal judge could not preside over the Trump University because of his Mexican heritage.


It was President-Elect Trump who has seen fit to appoint Steve Bannon to be his chief strategist, a man who was more than happy to turn the once brilliance of Breitbart into "the platform of the Alt-Right". What would have become of American conservatism had William F. Buckley, Jr. had welcomed the John Birch Society with open arms more than half a century ago?


Now I know that Harsanyi is no Trump fan. But just because Trump is to become the 45th President in eight weeks doesn't mean we should stop criticizing him. Blaming the mainstream media for the rise of the Alt-Right is to avoid the man who is now the elephant in the room. To avoid the elephant in the room is to avoid the so-called Alt-Right excretions of his own making. Who among us is prepared to clean it up?