How the Press Missed the Trump Surge

[Commentary] Regularly dismissed one month ago as a campaign distraction, much of the Beltway media appeared to be in agreement that Donald Trump's campaign was nothing more than a joke and might not even be worth covering. But now with poll after poll showing him racing to the front of the Republican pack, journalists are trying to make sense of it all. (The fallout from Trump's attack on Sen John McCain's (R-AZ) war record is still being calculated.)

But is Trump's run really that surprising? It shouldn't be if you've been paying attention to the radical, obstructionist turn both Republican politics and the right-wing media have taken over the last six-plus years. Yet during most of that span, the DC media stoically pretended the GOP hadn't taken an ugly, radical turn. And that's why so many seem baffled by Trump's rise. Fueled by hateful rhetoric and right-wing media programming, Republicans and conservatives have veered towards extremism in recent years. If the press had honestly documented that trend, today's Trump phenomenon wouldn't come as such a shock.

[Eric Boehlert is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America]