The mainstream media, these people back here, they are the worst. They are so dishonest…. And, by the way, some of the media is terrific, but most of it, 70%-75%, is absolute dishonest, absolute scum. Remember that. Scum! Scum. They’re totally dishonest people. Donald J. Trump, December 7, 2015

Donald Trump and the media have had a turbulent history, to say the least. The latest development in their torrid affair has been Trump avoiding media engagements prior to Monday’s debate. There have been discussions about how his decreased media presence will make the debate “the first time the candidate is forced to address [his foundation and renounced birtherism].” This new strategy with interacting with the media is fundamentally different than his previous interactions, which was usually a full schedule of interviews and appearances. So, what gives? The real answer is that Trump has always been in control of his media presence and is a champion of theorists commonly refer to as “framing.”

Now, to work with a clear definition of framing, the democratic encyclopedia says:

In the social sciences, framing comprises a set of concepts and theoretical perspectives on how individuals, groups, and societies, organize, perceive, and communicate about reality.

In other words, framing consists of the idea that we can manipulate the picture frame the houses reality to show us a different picture. This idea says that we can never truly present an idea objectively, as we are always operating within a frame of understanding. But, that’s framing that done by accident. The next question is always, can we actively frame?

This leads me to the coolest part about Donald Trump’s candidacy: his ability to control the frame of the discussion. As any shifty debater that enjoys tricky argumentation (such as myself!) knows, the best way to win is the set up the round so that anything that your opponent says is instantly disregarded or suspected to be false. Recently, I had a debate round where my response to the resolution “ID cards should be provided to all illegal immigrants” involved a redefinition of “ID cards” to be “Social Security Cards”, effectively granting citizenship to all undocumented persons, even though the resolution had an entirely different idea in mind. This is how I manipulated the frame of the debate round to make my opponent’s arguments about how ID cards forced undocumented persons to out themselves as law-breakers completely irrelevant. And, with the skill of a seasoned debater (albeit maybe a bit too much turmeric), Donald Trump has effectively controlled the frame from day one, where he invited the press into his tower and made a grand entrance.

Now, just because the Donald is good at framing, doesn’t meant that it’s right. In fact, many of the ways that he frames the discussion of issues leads to many problems. The most problematic framing that Trump engages in is framing “the media” as “absolute, dishonest scum”, which is pulled from a speech he gave on December 7th, 2015. Where it’s clearly important to be critical of media, it’s not a good idea to reject the majority of media on face, especially if the only complaint is that it treats you harshly. This ultimately leads to the creation of a single arbiter of truth, which is, in this case, Donald Trump. Having a frame that questions the veracity of everyone but yourself is an excellent debate strategy, but an awful way to create a political dialogue or generate a productive discussion. In the end, these kinds of manipulation of the truth leads to awful decisions.

Let’s jump back a couple of years to ancient Greece. When Socrates was put on trial for the “corruption of youth”, the Athenian jurors were told by Meletus, the person accusing Socrates, that Socrates was a liar and not to be trusted. So, when Socrates went to defend himself (which he did amazingly), the jurors were not receptive to his thoughtful and intuitive argument, indicating that his role as an educator was valuable, which is largely the view of the world today. This framing of Socrates as “a wise man, who speculated about the heaven above, and searched into the earth beneath, and made the worse appear the better cause” led to his execution, as they were told that he was a charlatan that lied and mislead everyone into believing falsehoods.

In a sense, Donald Trump is putting the media on trial, much like Meletus put Socrates on trial. Trump is framing the media as a liar and is asking us to symbolically execute the media by refusing to listen to it, thus destroying their livelihood. This is an execution that we really cannot afford and will look back at with regret.