This worries me. This wouldn't be happening if not for our willfully negligent media.

Dear every major “news” media outlet in the U.S., with the exception of a precious few to whom this open letter via blog post does not apply...

I’m gonna ask you a simple question, because the curiosity—it burns.

Is it really a horserace you’re after, or do you (or the corporate Powers That Be that govern you) genuinely want to see Donald Trump elected President in November?

Commentary after commentary after commentary after commentary from the (honestly) serious people in journalism suggest the former. Close elections are historically beneficial for ratings, and in turn revenue, and this election is proving to be especially good for FOX, CNN, and MSNBC—all of whom are killing it over this horse race, beating out ESPN, TBS, and even AMC, which boasts The Walking Dead as the cornerstone of its network’s high ratings. More ratings=more eyeballs on TV screens=more revenue in Big Media’s pockets.

If that’s the case—you’re in it for the horse race and are agnostic on who wins or loses this November—then that, umm, probably explains why you’re magnifying a clearly superior and highly qualified candidate’s relatively minor (and even negligible) infractions and minimizing the giant and possibly criminal malevolence of a demonstrably (and at best) inferior and unqualified candidate. I only hope the stakeholders in your circles aren’t stupid enough to realize that you’ve created a Frankenstein’s monster who, as Paul Krugman succinctly points out, has a very real chance of winning November’s election due to your whitewashing of a dictatorial maniac and your tarnishing whom our current President calls the most qualified Presidential candidate in this race, or perhaps ever.

However, I’m beginning to suspect that it’s the latter—you really do want to have Trump as President. Even despite the national and global consequences, some of which are already taking place. Hey, I guess ratings would still be high post-inauguration, given that President Trump would no doubt find something stupid—and more likely damaging—to do or say or Tweet on a weekly, if not daily basis. More ratings=more revenue, remember? And don’t forget the hearty tax breaks that a Republican President would give your corporate overlords.

As I blasted off to CNN via the network’s comments form the other day, giving Trump the Astroturf treatment and not just one, but numerous, free passes due to his “being a first-time politician” could very well enable a Trump presidency, just as (again, as Krugman astutely recalls) George W. Bush received easy media treatment and thus graced us with Iraq, Katrina, and an economic meltdown. In my opinion, the eight years of an awful Bush presidency would pale in comparison to the disaster a Trump presidency would bring.

Is that what you in the media really want? Have you thought outside your hermetic bubble in the Beltway about how a Trump presidency would affect the rest of us in not only the U.S., but the world at large? The lives of real people—actual mothers, fathers, children, families, workers, working poor, unemployed, your own neighbors—could and most certainly will be ruined as a result of your malfeasance, intentional or unintentional.

Yes, I’m laying the blame for a potential Trump presidency—and the certain and colossal ruin that it would leave in its wake—squarely on YOU. And not just the media as a collective entity, but to the individual reporters in whom millions place their trust to give them the facts, but instead are being fed misinformation as a result of your negligence—again, intended or unintended. You are failing in your jobs as journalists and derelict in your duties. Have you forgotten your jobs as truth-tellers, as the Fourth Estate, as the check and balance against all wrongdoers in the public sphere? You don’t deserve the trust that millions of Americans have in you.

But you still have a chance in these final months of your ginned-up horse race. You still have a chance to come clean and make it right. You can do the job of the people instead of your obsessive need for ratings and all of the perks that it brings. You can do the right thing. Report the truth about both candidates for once. The American people can then realize the lie that “both sides are just as bad” and that, yes, one candidate is clearly more qualified despite her being a typical politician, despite her being “business as usual.”

Because, despite the fanfare you push that being a typical politician is bad, we need someone to govern. We need people to do the hard, unsexy business of governing properly. Business as usual—especially if it keeps our government functional—isn’t a bad thing, nor should it be represented as such by your decrepit “reporting.” It’s high time you stopped pushing the public meme—intentionally or unintentionally—implicitly or overtly—that Donald Trump is a fresh face who’d shake things up in Washington. Our government is too important to “shake things up” with a clear and present danger such as the likes of Trump.

In closing, maybe this is too much to ask of you, but I’m gonna ask it anyway. In fact, on behalf of many Americans I’m sure, I’m going to demand it. Respect our government and our representative democracy. Respect the U.S. Constitution and what it stands for. Respect your roles and journalists and make journalism itself an honorable profession again. Do the right thing. Be the Fourth Estate we can trust. Whatever your reasons—the “horse race” or you do secretly want Trump to be President—if you keep going in the direction you’re going, you do so at all of our peril...and yours, too.