Civics: Lawfare & the Legacy Media
The Supreme Court last week allowed Donald Trump’s ballroom construction to proceed, eliciting shock from the press corps. The court on Monday allowed the president’s mail-in voting order to continue, eliciting the same shock. This follows the shock after Trump administration wins on immigration enforcement, personnel firings, DEI and transgender orders, and dozens of other issues.
How long is the public meant to treat the press’s pearl-clutching as genuine, rather than part of a campaign to undermine the administration and the credibility of the high court?
The state of legal reporting has reached peak national embarrassment, a master class in fiction that rivals the reporting about Russia “collusion” and Joe Biden’s undiminished capacity. The media’s contribution to lawfare began in the earliest days of the first Trump term and has become only more brazen. The swings and misses are there for all to see, every day. Yet the formula is now so routine that nobody pushes back.
It works like this: The administration takes an action that offends liberal sensibilities. Interest groups rush to litigate, sometimes with prepackaged lawsuits. The press quotes liberal law professors and the litigators themselves as to why the suits are worthy. A liberal judge issues an injunction, which is treated as further proof of a lawsuit’s merit. The stories omit any critical analysis of standing, jurisdiction, merits or precedent. When a higher court corrects the legal overreach, the media, rather than acknowledge it got it wrong, insists the judges are in the tank for Mr. Trump.
Consider that ballroom case. When the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit last December to halt the project, the press corps pushed the litigation as a slam dunk. The stories all led with a quote from the suit, presenting as fact that “no president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever.” The pieces cataloged the laws the administration had supposedly violated, and the claim that any building required the “express authority of Congress.” Critics hailed the early August ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to halt the project as evidence of the trust’s legal firepower.
