This past weekend was consumed by soul-sucking debate about whether the comedian invited to the White House Correspondents Dinner made jokes that were too mean to White House officials or the Beltway press. The annual dinner is emblematic of the all-too-cozy relationship between that elite political press and the powerful people they cover, and deserves nothing but mockery. But that didn't stop media types and conservatives from clutching their pearls and heading for the fainting couches when jokester Michelle Wolf suggested Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a relentless and unrepentant public liar.

What about civility? they cried. All she did was insult people. This is supposed to be a celebration of the First Amendment, or something.

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In the ultimate, perfect, and immediate riposte, the President of the United States simultaneously held a rally for reelection—two years removed from any election—which immediately threw the scandalized D.C. politicos' concerns into sharp relief. Addressing the Michigan crowd, Trump returned to his campaign style of free-associating Fox News talking points to feed the audience's simmering resentment.

Of course, this included his signature civility, something so lacking from Wolf's routine. It also included threatening a Democratic senator who blocked the appointment of Ronny Jackson, coaxing the crowd into booing John McCain, who is dying of brain cancer, and blabbering incoherently about making "rich countries" pay to "stop the trip to the Mediterranean for the enemies." Uh, what?

But then there was the pure, uncut stuff:

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TRUMP: Are there any Hispanics in the room?



[crowd boos]



TRUMP: Not so many? That's okay... and in fairness, Kanye West gets it! pic.twitter.com/CegLcNzDXy — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 29, 2018

The crowd does not exactly boo at the mention of "Hispanics"—there's some, but it's more whistling. (It's worth remarking, even after all this time, that taking roll call of racial groups from the podium is not typical presidential behavior.) But more to the point, Trump then immediately launched into praise of Kanye West.

Is West Hispanic? No. But unlike the vast majority of Trump supporters, he is not white. He is part of The Other, just like The Hispanics, and his support is a useful political cudgel for the president, like citing black or Hispanic unemployment numbers. Trump sees his base of white supporters as existing at the center of American life—the Real Americans—and support from The Other is only ever a secondary concern. Often, these anecdotes are just weapons against claims his rhetoric is racist.

Just to wrap things up neatly, though, Trump concluded his foray into The Other by demanding The Wall be built. Because The Wall is about illegal immigration, sure, but it's really a symbol of maintaining the Real Americans' current place in the social order.

Having established all that, Trump moved on to the next act of this authoritarian circus: demonizing his political opponents.

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Trump on Democrats: "They don't care about our military. They don't. They don't care, & they don't care about our borders. And I don't think they care much about crime because if you look at it, MS-13, they pour through, everybody pours through, and they want it. They want it." pic.twitter.com/G6USjwVNuS — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2018

The message here is clear: The Democratic Party is willing to put you and your family at the mercy of violent criminal gangs to boost its own political power. They are opposed to your interests, to the interests of the nation. They are Enemies of the People.

Of course, none of this is reflected in reality: Barack Obama deported more people than any other president before him, to the outrage of immigration advocates and The Left. The idea Democrats are allowing immigrants to flood across the southern border because they will vote Democrat is belied by the lack of evidence illegal immigrants vote in any significant numbers. Anyway, net immigration to and from Mexico has been negative for years. But don't let reality get in the way of a good talk-radio meme. Trump also characterized Democrats as a "gang" led by Nancy Pelosi, a 78-year-old from San Francisco.

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But the real peach, in the context of the uproar over the White House Correspondents Dinner, was the general attitude towards the press. One Associated Press reporter in attendance at the dinner decried Wolf's mean jokes about the Trump administration because it would make it harder for journalists to gain the trust of Trump supporters. As The Washington Post's Greg Sargent put it nicely, the mainstream media's right-wing critics will never concede that the press is reporting objectively, no matter how many lies journalists repeat in the name of hearing from "both sides." The point of the "liberal bias" rhetoric is to carve out room in the mainstream for those lies, distortions, and extremist positions.

More to the point, hate for the media plays well with The Base. Just look at this guy, who decided to greet the assembled press after Trump's rally:

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This Trump supporter repeatedly yelled at the press, calling media “degenerate filth” and to get out of his country after the Michigan rally concluded pic.twitter.com/hbd8vhpVYc — Brianna Sacks (@bri_sacks) April 29, 2018

If Wolf had been nice to Sarah Huckabee Sanders and pretended she was something other than a skilled apologist for a kakistocratic disaster, would this man have decided he liked and trusted the press? It's a long way from "degenerate filth" and "sodomite scum" to "valued institution of democracy."

How about these folks that Fox News interviewed before the rally kicked off?

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Trump supporter tells Fox News he supports Trump skipping White House Correspondents' Dinner because "those people lie" pic.twitter.com/c7TVEy4MB9 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2018

Would they think The Press Is Good if the White House Correspondents Association had booked Dennis Miller? Or would they completely ignore the gesture the next time The Washington Post reports something negative that the president or his administration is actually doing?

How about the folks who immediately booed at the mere mention of the Correspondents Dinner, even before they heard about the Mean Comedian?

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Is it possible that Trump decided to have this rally in Washington, Michigan, just so he could use this line? pic.twitter.com/oAMbdo29lR — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 28, 2018

In a recent poll, more than half of Republicans said they believe the media is "the enemy of the people," the exact words once used by Donald Trump. Just 37 percent characterized the press as "an important part of democracy."

What Saturday night—and the depressing, endless debate that followed—have shown more than anything is that the Beltway media still has not come to grips with the political moment. From the minute Trump was elected, D.C. journalists have been desperate for him to become a Normal President. There's plenty of talk about a Beltway Bubble, where residents fail to see the problems and concerns of normal people out in the country. There's certainly some truth to that. But while those outraged at the dinner focused on a comedian's mean jokes about the powerful, there was, at that very moment, new evidence that the seeds of American authoritarianism are beginning to blossom. The leader of a movement with, at the very least, an authoritarian streak, also happens to be the most powerful man in the world.

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There are millions of people in this country who will never believe what The New York Times reports about the president, no matter how many sources they have on the record or how many documents they have obtained, because the president says it's not true and they're with the president. They believe he is right to call on law enforcement to crack down on his political opponents, and to interfere in Justice Department investigations. They doubt the value of an independent, confrontational press in a democratic republic. No comedian's routine will make any difference in that. No number of self-flagellating apologias will lead people who attend a Trump rally to trust outlets outside of Fox News and talk radio.

The mainstream press tries, as much as possible, to report the truth. They make mistakes, but that is the goal—which is why those outlets then correct the mistakes, unlike Breitbart or Sean Hannity. The truth is often the president's enemy, and even his most well-heeled supporters don't want to hear his lies called lies:

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.@mschlapp says journalists shouldn't call out Trump's lies: "The journalist shouldn't be the one to say the president or his spokesperson is lying, because what that does is to 50% of the country, is it makes them feel like they aren't credible to listen to." pic.twitter.com/UEqYUgPklg — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 30, 2018

The solution for journalists is not to hedge the distinction between truth and lies, or to somehow orient themselves to respond to their critics. Those critics will never grant them the distinction of Unbiased Objective Journalist, because it is not politically fruitful to do so. The solution is to print the unvarnished truth, over and over again, until the share of this country that has retained its grip on reality can wrest control of it from the forces of unhinged resentment, paranoia, and lies.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

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