Philip Bump's "We're seeing institutions start to waver as constraints to Trump's impulses" hits on the important point that key U.S. institutions of government showing signs of strain in withstanding Trump's increasing authoritarianism and acts of self-preservation. But Bump's essay also betrays some of the weaknesses of reality based media's struggle with balancing factual reporting with efficiency of descriptions.
So Bump writes that Trump "seems to have internalized a narrative that was common on Fox News..." and
"The president no doubt believes, at least to some extent, that Clinton broke the law either with her email server or with the Clinton Foundation or both."
"It’s not clear what annoys him more: questions about whether he or people on his campaign might have criminally aided the Russian meddling efforts — or questions about the extent to which those efforts might have made the difference."
"Trump fails to understand that the allegations he’s embracing are often specious (a diet heavy in Sean Hannity will do that to you). "
The above statements all report on Trump's state of mind, which the author can not know. The reason that reporters like Bump make objective statement's on state of mind is to economize on language in the interest of clarity. But what they sacrifice is accuracy. Suppose that Trump is mindful that he has committed numerous felonies like money laundering along with his associates. And worse.
Bump is required by archaic journalistic rules not only to avoid assuming the worst, but, for the sake of argument, to assume that the worst is not true. But we do not know that and for that reason, there is no justification to the assumption that we can speak about Trump's state of mind.
Bluntly stated, Trump may not believe Clinton broke the law. And his "annoyance" may be the annoyance that any criminal feels as the law closes in. And, really, he "may not understand" that Hannity's arguments are specious? Why say that unless the objective is to give Trump all benefit of the doubt as if the only history of Trump we know is the history that yields every benefit of the doubt in Trump's favor, which is an unreasonable stretch.
It is frustrating to see a journalist write incisively with compelling examples that the institutions of government are wavering, but to violate basic standards of objectivity - never mind the rules journalists impose on themselves coupled with the exceptions they allow themselves. We know what Trump does. We know what Trump says. There is no need and should be no liberty to speculate on Trump's thoughts and beliefs which are unknowable. These same journalistic standards were turned backwards during the 2016 political campaign when Trump lied incessantly. Reality-based journalists could not bring themselves to say that Trump was lying because that would make him a liar, which would be inflammatory and controversial, seeming non-objective. So the reporters claimed that we could not call Trump's statements lies, not knowing if he believed them himself. Well, if we did not know his thoughts in 2016, we do not know his thoughts now.
The problem with articles like this in Washington Post and New York Times is that they make questionable assumptions due to the self imposed requirement to avoid reasonable assumptions, even tentatively, if those assumptions yield controversial conclusions. As a result, WaPo and NYT political news reporting on Trump and the Republicans in Congress, though well sourced, becomes inferior in drawing conclusions - connecting the dots- to other publications like New York Magazine, Business Insider, and Washington Monthly.
Instead of writing as if we know Trump's thoughts and beliefs, Bump could have pointed out that, in terms of context, the Trump administration actions to advance the prosecution of Hillary Clinton is a natural course of action that dictators take when they are in power and an extension of the deny, deflect, distract, accuse tactics of the 2016 campaign. When you have the power, "accuse" tends to become become investigate and prosecute.
The Trumpian reaction is eerily similar to the Putin playbook. More to come on that.
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