A phenomenon known as the “Trump bump” swept through US media and the stock market during Donald Trump’s first term as president. Public interest in the news jumped, driving up revenue for media organizations. The stock market boomed except for a Covid pause.
This phenomenon was attributed to Trump’s skill in constantly making controversial headlines. Americans lapped up the unconventional way a wealthy property developer who became president ran the country. The media labeled this spiked interest the Trump bump.
Trump has been president for about 15 months, but a new Trump bump has yet to emerge. Today’s America is not like the America of 10 years ago when he first became president. Americans are more caustically divided along political lines than ever before.
The mutual contempt between Democrats and Republicans we see now did not exist during my many years in Washington DC covering Congress, the State Department, and the White House in the early 1990s. There were ideological clashes between them on some issues, which is normal in a democracy, but they strived to compromise. Bipartisanship is a forgotten word in today’s America.
Many reasons explain why the Trump bump has fizzled. Chief among them is the growing weariness of Trump’s toxic politics. Opinion polls consistently show his popularity stuck at a low of about 37 percent. Trump is still making daily headlines, but for the wrong reasons.
His global tariffs, cuts to health care and food assistance, rising grocery prices, higher inflation, and his war of choice against Iran, which is driving up gas prices for motorists, are all making headlines.
Such headlines illustrate why working-class Americans are struggling with the high cost of living caused by Trump’s policies. Even his tax cuts, which he claimed benefited all taxpayers, are seen as favoring the wealthy more than the working class.
Americans struggling with high living costs can’t understand why Trump razed the historic White House East Wing to build a US$400 million (HK$3.12 billion) ballroom and a pricy taxpayer-funded gilded arch in Washington DC inspired by the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
Even staunch Trump loyalist Tucker Carlson, a former rightwing Fox News host who now has millions of social media followers, apologized last week for supporting Trump’s reelection.
A CNN report cited a “Trump slump” as people turn away from TV and print media. The Washington Post lost thousands of subscribers after its billionaire owner Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon, blocked a planned endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Subscribers saw his decision as favoring Trump.
Americans abandoning what they see as bias in the traditional media are migrating to independent outlets and podcasts. The CNN report cited the American edition of the British newspaper The Guardian as an example.
The Guardian is reader-funded with no paywall or billionaire owner, giving it credibility to promote the paper as independent. It used Trump’s reelection to raise millions of dollars from donors who oppose Trump, which was a Trump bump in reverse.
Michael Chugani is a longtime journalist who has worked in Hong Kong, the US, and London
𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓
