‘Existential fight’: Five ways the media must cover Donald Trump as an authoritarian threat

The presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, is promising to dismantle this country’s government institutions and increase his power if he returns to office. He’s also threatening to jail his political opponents.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is currently a distant second in the Republican primary, also plans to dismantle America’s institutions and attack our democracy should he become president.

Some journalists and media experts who focus on threats to democracy have been sounding the alarm. The threat of authoritarianism is real, they argue, particularly with Trump racing forward toward a nomination victory despite the 91 felony counts he’s facing across four separate criminal cases.

POLL: Should Trump be allowed to run for office?

However, much of the media is still approaching this election as they would any other.

An August article published on the blog Press Watch pleaded with newsroom leaders not to treat this election as “business as usual.”

Doing so could include:

• Using a “democracy frame” instead of a “horse race frame” to cover incremental election developments
• Focusing on the stakes of this election rather than the odds
• Putting the election in historical context
• Demanding clear answers on policy from candidates
• Resisting coverage of extreme candidates just to appear to be giving a balanced picture

Kim Lane Scheppele, a professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, tells Raw Story that she finds the current coverage of the election “alarming,” and the media needs to stop covering this “pivotal” election as if it’s just another normal election.

“Politics in the U.S. should be covered like the four-alarm fire that it is. The question before the electorate in the next presidential election – as in the last two – is not left or right, but instead democracy or autocracy,” says Scheppele, an expert on authoritarianism. “That’s the choice that the media should make clear.”

Scheppele says this can be done by telling the public exactly how candidates such as Trump and DeSantis plan to dismantle federal institutions by installing loyalists in key positions in the government, how election laws are being changed to favor Republicans and how democracy is being threatened in so many other ways. She says it’s also important for reporters to talk to Republicans and right-leaning independents who do believe in democracy and do not support what candidates such as Trump and DeSantis hope to do.

“I know reporters always want to be neutral and give ‘both sides’ equal time, but there are times when the highest calling of the journalism profession should be to keep the world safe for a free press to continue to operate,” Scheppele says. “The sides are not equal. This is an existential fight for democracy – and in that world, the media can only be on one side.”

An example: journalist Jonathan Swan's 2020 interview of Donald Trump, widely regarded as the gold-standard for holding Trump to account for his lies.

Steven Livingston, a professor of media and public affairs at The George Washington University, tells Raw Story the media also needs to get over its obsession with “polarization” — a phenomenon recently detailed by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch. Livingston says the problem is not that there is some happy medium and both sides have become much more polarized, it’s that one side has become radicalized and “left the rest of us behind.”

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“The polarization frame allows for a patina of balance… You need to change the narrative away from polarization and toward why authoritarianism emerges,” Livingston says. “We need to think holistically about the system that leads to radicalization, to authoritarianism and not just polarization.”

Livingston says Trump should not be treated like a normal candidate, because he isn’t one, and journalists shouldn’t be overly concerned with the notion of harboring some kind of liberal bias. He says that often causes journalists to overcorrect and do “both sides” coverage. He also says journalists should be talking to more experts on authoritarianism and fewer pollsters and pundits.

“The horse race frame is a convenience that allows news organizations to present themselves as being apolitical, and it’s dramatic. It offers a who’s ahead, who’s behind today frame, like baseball. It’s been known all along that that does not serve the public very well,” Livingston says.

The mainstream media has all of the resources it needs to do quality coverage of what’s truly happening in America as the election approaches. It would be far more useful if they were to consistently explore why authoritarianism has become an attractive option for so many Americans — rather than just covering the latest poll and taking Trump at face value.