If The Media Think Just Trump's The Problem, They're Part Of The Problem

Let's see what frequent blind squirrel Dana Milbank dug up this morning:

For months — years, really — Republicans have averted their gaze from Trump’s attacks on women, Hispanics and immigrants. Now the racism becomes more overt — and still, he goes unchallenged.  [snip]

[T]he front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination talks about the forced registration of Muslims. Republican leaders look away. And Trump surges in the polls, regaining the lead he had lost before the Paris attacks. For Republican leaders and rival candidates, these are the wages of cowardice.

Two months ago, after the second GOP debate, I saw signs that Republican hopefuls had begun to think it safe to take on Trump “consistently and jointly.” But that didn’t continue, and Republicans are now stuck with a collective-action problem. There’s no incentive for an individual Republican candidate to take on Trump only to get mowed down by his counterassault. Instead, some rivals are imitating Trump’s positions.

No shit, Sherlock!  Well, there's a reason they're the party of fear and loathing!  Milbank might wait until the final primary ballot is cast before he comes to the realization that the main difference between Rump and his rivals is that Rump is the ugly, nativist Republican id with the volume turned up and no filter, and the rest of the field simply prefers the volume lower with some weasel words to cover up the crazy.  Likewise, Milbank's editorial board at the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle is vainly looking for someone in the Republican ranks to "stand up" to the bully Rump, as though the party's problem is Rump and not the party's ignorant, nativist base that's been nurtured for 40 years to fear and hate. That's who the other moral flyweights in the party fear and to whom they knuckle under.

We'll see if The New York Times can do any better:

Mr. Trump relies on social media to spread his views. This is convenient because there’s no need to respond to questions about his fabrications. That makes it imperative that other forms of media challenge him.

Instead, as Mr. Trump stays at the top of the Republican field, it’s become a full-time job just running down falsehoods like the phony crime statistics he tweeted, which came from a white supremacist group.

Yet Mr. Trump is regularly rewarded with free TV time, where he talks right over anyone challenging him, and doubles down when called out on his lies.

This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it. History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.  (our emphasis)

Why stop with Rump?  Why not interrupt every one of the craven, crackpot Republican candidates running for President and hold them accountable for their dangerous lies?  Is smarmy Sen. "Tailgunner Ted" Cruz any less a demagogue?  Or Dr. "Mental Ben" Carson?  How about the un-American views on religious tests for refugees spouted by "moderate" "J.E.B.!" Bush?  Or "Snarly" Carly Fiorina hallucinating about "100,000 Syrian refugees?"  And the imaginary "war" being waged on Christians, as seen by American Taliban demagogue Mike "Huckster" Huckabee? And on and on down into the sewer of American politics.

We would like to ask the frightened, "both sides do it" media to think about what it's costing our nation by failing to hold to account every one of these far- right candidates' disgusting, Islamophobic, homophobic, anti- black, anti- Hispanic, neo- fascist rantings.  Because, to this point, they've been getting away with it, and it's long past time for the media to be committing the most basic acts of journalism.