Suffice to say that Greg Gianforte's actions are extremely unlikely to appear on tip sheets for finishing out hotly contest congressional elections anytime soon.

Then again, this is 2017, so spiritually, you already knew how this would end: Gianforte, who led Democrat Rob Quist in most polls by a fair-but-not-insurmountable margin, won anyway. This happened for a bunch of reasons: Montana is a solidly red state that hasn't elected a Democrat to its single congressional district since 1996. More than one-third of ballots had already been submitted by mail as of Monday night, and state law does not allow voters to change their minds. By the time the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which for months stayed mostly clear of what they thought would be a losing battle, finally opened up the checkbook, it was too late to make much of a difference.

Most importantly, though, Gianforte won because of Donald Trump, who has successfully convinced untold millions of people that the free press is the enemy, and that it is good and righteous and American to fight back against it. After the news broke on Wednesday, Gianforte didn't apologize. He doubled down, issuing what appears to be a laughably absurd version of events when placed alongside Jacobs' and the Fox News crew's statements, calling Jacobs a "liberal reporter" and insinuating that Jacobs had actually assaulted him. If these grim dispatches from the polls are any indication, this plan worked:

Not to go all civics textbook on you, but the reason we have an independent press is to hold politicians accountable and to report facts that allow Americans to make decisions for themselves. This means that when Donald Trump (or any elected official) sees coverage he doesn't like, the correct thing to do is to look in the mirror. Instead, Trump long ago adopted the strategy of blaming the messenger, sneeringly dismissing unwelcome or unflattering coverage as "fake news." Gianforte's victory is a reminder that the success of his war on the media—he is president, after all—has given other Republican politicians license to do the same.

It is not an exaggeration to say that systematically discrediting the press threatens the foundations of how democracy works in America. For politicians, answering tough questions used to be part of the job, but Trump has recast journalists as a grip of sinister ideologues against whom Republicans can and should fight back. And their voters, who constantly hear that the media is "the enemy of the American people," are happy to circle the wagons around their leaders because this president has convinced them that it's their patriotic duty to do so. (The Gianforte campaign revealed on Thursday that they'd raised north of $100,000 in 24 hours, most of it after the assault story broke.)

This bears repeating: a legitimate candidate for elected office lost his shit and physically attacked a reporter in public. After only four months in office, Donald Trump has so thoroughly poisoned public discourse that he has convinced legions of voters to respond by shrugging their shoulders, opening their wallets, and electing a man who can't control his own violent impulses to represent them.

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