Brian Beutler of The New Republic expects that Donald Trump’s campaign will attempt to “hoodwink first-time voters or people who weren’t paying close attention…into believing known lies” about Hillary Clinton that first surfaced more than two decades ago. As for whether journalists will “debunk” Trump’s “whoppers,” Beutler’s not so sure.

“Unless a critical mass of media figures agrees to treat the things Trump exhumes from the fever swamps of the 1990s with the appropriate contempt, Trump will enjoy the benefit of the doubt most major-party nominees expect,” wrote Beutler in a Friday article. Beutler speculated that as Republicans unify behind Trump, reporters might be less inclined to criticize the presumptive nominee for his outrageous statements and more inclined to present him as a “partisan mirror image” of Clinton.

Trump’s new-old accusations, Beutler commented, “have all been either roundly debunked or, in the case of Hillary supposedly enabling Bill’s sexual indiscretions, merited no respectful hearing to begin with…[But] if enough [reporters] are cowed into treating the 20-year-old contents of The American Spectator as fair-game politics, Trump’s plan to dupe the young and forgetful will succeed.”

From Beutler’s piece (bolding added):