Remember who made Trump famous

Who’s to blame for Donald Trump? asked Jim Lewis. Liberals are blaming Fox News and other right-wing news outlets for inflaming the white working class with class envy and racial resentment, and the Republican Party for not standing up to a loathsome bully. But the culture that initially made Trump a celebrity “wasn’t the one that goes hunting on weekends.” Nor was it a Ku Klux Klan newsletter that first brought Trump to our attention. “It was Time and Esquire and Spy.” Who gave him his own TV show? NBC. Our “coastal cultural gatekeepers” have been totally complicit in this crass hustler’s 30-year campaign of selfpromotion, chuckling ironically at his materialism and sexism, and profiting from his ability to sell newspapers and books and boost TV ratings. Even when Trump became rancidly political, and railed that President Obama was a Muslim born in Kenya, The Washington Post invited him to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. What good fun! Would, say, David Duke have gotten the same invitation? No. But Trump wasn’t a “redneck,” so the elites indulged him. But now that the game has gotten out of hand, “let’s remember who helped create this monster.”