Kash Patel's top enemy probably isn't who you think it is

I’d like to congratulate every member of the Washington press corps who decided to play along with Donald Trump’s campaign. By doing so, you helped normalize a liar, fraud, adjudicated rapist, convicted felon, and traitor, making him seem to voters just like any other politician.

It’s due to your efforts that, as president-elect, he has nominated a bootlicking toady to head up the FBI, a man who believes the bureau is not a law enforcement body so much as Trump’s personal police force.

Congratulations! By playing along, you have put a target on your own heads. Kash Patel has implied that the media is public enemy No. 1. Don’t be surprised. You knew they were coming for you. They already told you. Yet you normalized him anyway. Well done, my compatriots.

Well done.

Because some reporters chose to report Trump’s bad faith as if it were good faith, or chose to smuggle into mainstream political discourse rightwing lies and smears to such a degree that all discourse is now “right-coded,” what used to be all talk is about to become all action.

Trump has been clear about what he wants to do to newspeople but newspeople decided to pretend he didn’t mean it, because pretending was good news for their employers, the owners of the country’s most lucrative media properties. Now they face a future in which they will cease to be merely discredited and will begin to be harrassed, even suppressed, by the awesome police power of the US government.

In an interview last year, Patel vowed to persecute anyone who had “conspired” with Joe Biden to “rig” the 2020 election. “We will go and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media,” he told Steve Bannon. “Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens to help Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. We’re putting you all on notice.”

These “conspirators” apparently include critics. A former Trump official revealed today that Patel is threatening to sue if she does not retract “comments on MSNBC about his unfitness to serve as FBI Director.” Olivia Troye, who was a White House advisor, said this “aligns with [Patel’s] threats against the media and political opponents, revealing how he might conduct himself if confirmed in the role.”

I might feel sorry for these reporters. Then again, they were warned.

And besides, what can you do with zealots?

They insisted on media rules that required them to set two candidates side-by-side who should never be set side-by-side as if they were both legitimate. One wanted to defend liberty and expand opportunity. The other wanted vengeance. Meanwhile, what the press wanted was for them to be equal. That would never be true, but they still wanted it. They thought they could make it true by believing hard enough.

Worse, they thought playing by “the rules” would appease maga revolutionaries who accused them of being unfair. They tried harder, but the reality was that they would never be fair enough. For Trump and maga revolutionaries, the problem isn’t what reporters do. It’s who they are. And who they are will always be the enemy of the people.

These reporters were zealots two times over.

On the one hand, they thought that they could make not-equal things equal if only they believed harder. On the other hand, they didn’t believe what was plain the whole time: Donald Trump said that they were the enemy, and now that he’s won the election, he’s going to treat them that way. Incredibly, reporters still don’t seem to believe him.

Which makes them zealots three times over.

Again, I might feel sorry for them, though sympathy is hard to come by knowing the importance of the Washington press corps in bringing down Joe Biden. There was nothing the president could accomplish that was more important than his age, even though he’s just two years older than the criminal whom these newspeople helped normalize.

Indeed, the press corps did more than that. It elevated fear, ignorance and superstition to such heights that the Democratic Party can no longer engage with reporters with a reasonable expectation of being treated fairly. As Josh Marshall said, and I agree, “Democrats need to organize their future politics around the simple reality that the establishment media is structurally hostile to the Democratic Party."

I don’t feel sorry for them, but I don’t feel hopeful either. The serious consequences of normalizing a criminal are not going to change the behavior of some beltway reporters. After all, they are who they are.

And zealots don’t change their minds.

As the leader of Trump’s personal police force, Kash Patel can investigate them. He can jail them. He can sue them. He can harangue them into self-censorship or paralysis. But that’s not going to wake them up. That’s not going to make them see the error of their ways.

Rather than fight back by standing on principle – on freedom of speech and press, on holding the powerful to account – they will just do more of the same. They will appease and appease and appease, and they will think they’re almost there if only they believe hard enough.

Those zealots who do come to realize the blinding power of their zealotry, and thus repent by returning to their principles, well, good luck to them. While they might rediscover their previous loyalty to principle, there’s nothing saying that their employers, the owners of the country’s most lucrative media properties, must be loyal to them.

Zealots are always betrayed in the end.

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