Jack, remember when then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton referred to half of Trump supporters as "deplorables?" Some seven years later we remember that comment because it was all the traditional news outlets could talk about.

Now, however, Trump is echoing authoritarians Hitler and Mussolini, saying in a Veterans' Day speech that he will "root out… the radical left thugs that live like vermin." His comments have received little airtime.

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The traditional news media is failing us by continuing to, so willingly, echo right-wing news media and cut Trump slack for his inflammatory, violence-inducing rhetoric—and Media Matters has the receipts to prove it:

The nationally syndicated broadcast news shows—“Good Morning America,” “This Week,” and “World News Tonight” on ABC; “This Morning,” “Mornings,” “Face the Nation,” and “Evening News” on CBC; and “Today,” “Nightly News,” and “Meet the Press” on NBC—spent a combined 54 minutes on Clinton’s deplorables comment in the first week after she said it. Those same shows spent a combined three minutes on Trump’s vermin rant. That's 18 times more coverage on a minute-by-minute basis!

In that same one-week window after each comment, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News mentioned “deplorable” or “deplorables” a combined 1,662 times as compared with 191 mentions of “vermin.” The discrepancy wasn’t all Fox News. CNN talked about “deplorable” 553 times and “vermin” just 70. On MSNBC it was 596 to 112.
The five biggest newspapers in the country—the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post—mentioned Clinton's statement 29 times more than Trump’s.

Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy and we need a news media that will say just that.

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Thank you for all you do,
Amanda McKay, Daily Kos

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