When Donald Trump swept into power in 2017, many commentators feared that he would reign supreme because he had mastered the dominant media of our moment: Twitter and the ensemble of right-wing broadcasters from radio to Fox News. In theory, all these channels gave him direct, even hypodermic, access to the American mind. He could afford to kick aside the mainstream news media — “enemy of the American People” and “the Fake News” — and dance end runs around them.

Even better: Within his echo chamber, his insults would function like fight cheers, arousing his base to rejoice as he berated TV reporters and whole networks along with his other designated enemies. Twitter, aquiver with excitement, seemed his perfect medium, biased toward pith, slogans and repetition, and thus suited to amplify his litany of lies and distortions — not only the ones that originated with him but also those that he channeled from his favorite pundits and retweeted from the blasts of poisonous white nationalist and supremacist online entities.

Right-wing media led Trump into trap

It was perfectly reasonable to be aghast at the viciousness, crudity and bravado of his tweets, from accusations that he had fallen afoul of “WITCH HUNTS” to his claim that he is “the best thing that's ever happened to Puerto Rico” to his calling an ABC News reporter “lightweight” to his latest: “The LameStream Media has gone totally CRAZY!”

He was so nasty, it seemed but a short step to the assumption that his propaganda was irresistible. Because he spends so much time watching Fox News, he might well have thought so.

President Donald Trump greets Fox News' Sean Hannity at a campaign rally on Nov. 5, 2018, in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.

But it’s likely that the right-wing media have led him into a trap. Precisely the qualities that rouse his base repel a larger base. His taunts ignite not only fervor but also at least as large a measure of disgust. We saw the electoral version of this action-reaction loop at work in the 2018 midterm elections: It was the desertion of traditional Republican voters, especially suburban white women, that did more to undermine his party than any other single factor. When you sound more raucous, some people — “your people" ­­— cheer but others cringe and shout back.

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An unrecognizable America: Democracy in Trump era is dying tweet by tweet, and we won't see the big picture for years

So Trump’s inability to boost his approval ratings even as he claims economic progress could tell the tale. The fixity, even stagnation of his ratings might be, in part, a consequence of the fact that the public hears him all too well, and that a majority do not like what they hear. His every crescendo of bombast reminds them why they don’t like him or trust him, why he embarrasses and frightens them.

FDR sparked hope, Trump incites fury

When Franklin Roosevelt first ran for president, and in the months before he was inaugurated in March 1933, and then again from the White House, he used radio. He perfected a rhetorical form that addressed the great majority of Americans. His “fireside chats” were also adapted to newsreels screened in theaters. He was not only a voice of hope against fear, he also personified reassurance and hope on behalf of an America that he was trying to coax to recovery amid the damages of the Great Depression.

Instead of encouraging hope, Trump doubles down on fury. But he still misjudges the country (insisting, for example, that he won the popular vote against all available evidence). His very harshness incites, in response, massive disbelief and horror. When he thunders several times a day from his bully pulpit, he keeps reminding a larger public that he is, in fact, a bully.

Ducking the real story: We need news to use about climate. Give us a daily carbon dioxide count with the weather.

Circus owner P.T. Barnum is often credited with saying there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Or, as a character in Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" put it, "There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."

But Trump is proving them wrong.

Go with your gut and other guts fight back. Live by the tweet, fail by the countertweet. Blinded by unbridled confidence in his superpowers, Trump could not imagine the force that might bring him down: revulsion.

Todd Gitlin, a professor of journalism and sociology, is chair of the Ph.D. program in Communications at Columbia University. Follow him on Twitter: @toddgitlin ‏

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump on Twitter and right-wing media incites more disgust than fervor