Trump, not ‘the liberal media’, is dividing the Republican Party

Republicans blame the media for dividing Republicans, but the person fomenting the flames of conflict is former President Trump.

Last month, Donald Trump’s former UN ambassador Nikki Haley argued in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that “the liberal media … wants to stoke a nonstop Republican civil war”. She wrote that “The media playbook starts with the demand that everyone pick sides about Donald Trump – either love or hate everything about him. The moment anyone on the right offers the slightest criticism of the 45th president, the media goes berserk.” Her op-ed came amid Republican criticism of her interview with Politico, where she argued that Trump “went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.” Haley is considered a more “moderate” member of the Republican Party, a quality these days determined less by ideology and more by one’s willingness to criticise Trump or to openly propagate conspiracy theories.