This isn’t a new idea but it is one that the left is desperate to legitimize in advance of the 2020 election. Today Washington Post media columnist Margaret Sullivan made the case for de-platforming Trump in a piece titled ”

I wouldn’t suggest, for a moment, that network television and the rest of the mainstream media should ignore what the president says. That would be irresponsible, not to mention impossible. Especially with 800,000 federal workers bearing the brunt of an unnecessary government shutdown, there is inherent news value in what’s going on. News organizations are rightly focused on that, including on the president’s attempts to justify it. But broadcasting him live and unfiltered — whether in an Oval Office speech, or an impromptu news conference, or at a campaign rally — has been a bad idea for quite some time. Instead, whatever news is produced can be presented in context with facts woven in from the start: Truth first.

Yesterday, Ed wrote about CNN’s Don Lemon who wondered aloud whether Trump’s speech should be delayed. That idea didn’t come from Lemon. He was probably borrowing from CNN’s Senior Media Reporter Oliver Darcy who published a story last week under the headline “Cable news networks air Trump’s comments in real-time. But should they?” If you know anything about CNN or Oliver Darcy you can probably guess which way the story was slanted. Here’s a sample:

The practice of airing Trump’s remarks in real-time, as networks did this week, gives the President a platform to reach millions of people at once and dominate the conversation — and Trump often uses the opportunity to deceive viewers by peddling misinformation and falsehoods. Trump’s comments are almost always followed by informed analysis and fact-checking, but some media critics say cable news networks should still rethink carrying Trump on-air as he delivers remarks.

One of the media critics Darcy cites to make his point: Margaret Sullivan. So in the span of a week, we’ve gone from the suggestion that maybe networks should put Trump on a delay to the outright call for networks to deny him live airtime. And really this is just the “respectable” press. Over at Salon the discussion is lot less nuanced. Here’s Amanda Marcotte:

For very rich people who want to make unbelievable amounts of money without paying their fair share of taxes — such as, let’s say, the top executives at TV networks — this was a good moment for a major distraction. Luckily for them, Trump has one on offer: A bunch of hysterical lies about dark-skinned immigrants who are supposedly “invading” the United States. Some might dismiss this as paranoid thinking, but Vox co-founder Matt Yglesias also sees this as a logical explanation…

Oh. At first, I thought you were just talking out of your behind, but if Vox’s Matt Yglesias thinks this makes sense, that’s entirely different…said no one ever. Really, we’re supposed to believe putting Trump on air for a speech is all about class struggle? Someone needs to lay of the Marx-shaped bong.

It’s actually not much of a surprise to see the far left demanding Trump be de-platformed. These are the same people who assure us there is nothing to worry about with similar behavior on college campuses. But really they’re embracing the same tactic on a much larger stage.

Still, it’s a bit stunning to see the left-wing hacks in the mainstream media arguing that Trump should not be allowed access to the airwaves unless properly filtered through layers of (heavily slanted) media fact-checking. Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that the media rallied around Jim Acosta to ensure he wouldn’t lose his press access to shout things at the President? Now the same people want to take the public microphone away from the President himself. And they expect us to believe partisanship has nothing to do with it.