The daily and detailed specifics of Donald Trump’s many stupidities are of less concern to an Australian than the threat he posoes on some big questions—especially climate change, nuclear weapons and trade. What I find fascinating is the vehement but well-crafted language used against Trump in some of America’s highly reputed papers and magazines. The New York Times and the New Yorker in particular have nailed their journalistic colors to their mastheads. Thus David Remnick at the The New Yorker:

Every morning since November 9th, you wake up and read the news and think, “This has got to be an issue of The Onion.” Because, while so much of the media, in ways subtle and broad, attempts to normalize the Trump ascendancy, while we are told that patriotism demands that we accept Trump and “give him a chance,” the President-elect acts in ways that leave even dystopian satire behind. His behavior has little to do with conservatism or libertarianism or populism; his mode is recklessness, a self-admiring belief that unpredictability is the path to national salvation. And so every day brings at least one fresh outrage … It seems almost sadistic to go on. It’s the holiday season, after all. … But, rather than fog the mind and defeat the spirit with the litany of accumulated outrages, let’s concentrate on the outrage of the day &hellip