DispositionMatrix wrote:If the media knew how to do it's job, by now Trump would be hiding indoors and afraid to come out to do things like campaign since he would risk facing a barrage of uncomfortable questions.
Why does the media have to fact-check Trump? Isn't it obvious that he's lying through his teeth? (Sarcasm alert: the preceding sentence is meant as a joke; details below).
As usual, let's be systematic about this, and start with a taxonomy. There are tea-party style ultra-conservatives. They will believe everything Trump says, because it has truthiness to it. It doesn't matter whether respectable media fact-check him or not. If the NYT were to determine conclusively that Trump lied and published that, the Trumpers (Trumpini?) would just ascribe it to the liberal bias of the media.
On the other hand, there are liberals. They don't need fact-checking. They know that Trump is lying. Either because they are reasonable well educated and know the facts (and know how to find them, for example using the internet as a tool). Or because they are uneducated, but dyed-in-the-wool liberals, and simply believe firmly that Trump is a tool.
Neither group is served by fact-checking. So it would be a waste of time for the media to do this.
So maybe one should think the other candidates should be fact-checking, and attacking Trump? Alas, they won't. The republican candidates are all afraid of upsetting the hard-core republican base which is currently following Trump, so they won't do anything to insult him, for fear the anger of the base will taint them. Matter-of-fact, there was a nice article in the WaPo today, suggesting that since Jeb Bush is done for anyhow (he has no chance of winning the primaries), yet has oodles of money and lots of influence, he should sacrifice himself and use his resources to knock Trump out of the race, thereby enabling another republican candidate to win the presidential election. Because if Trump is the republican candidate, he will lose, and lose so spectacularly it will drag lots of other republican candidates down with him. Everyone here remember the 1964 presidential election, right?
On the other hand, the democrats wouldn't do anything to attack Trump. He is a gift from heaven for them. If he is the republican candidate, the democrats could even run a dead cat and a penguin and still win. Which would probably be preferable to their current selection of candidates. The thing that Hillary and Bernie and most afraid of is a centrist, competent republican candidate, who would likely eat their lunch.