There’s one topic members of the media care about more in 2024 than Donald Trump — “democracy.” The word “democracy” was said 34 times on MSNBC on Monday alone. Another 19 times on CNN, according to the database TV Eyes. It can often be followed by words like “itself.” Because democracy itself, you see, is at stake in 2024.

At least that’s what the self-important, doom-scrolling, politics-brained Acela Media tells us — and most importantly, tells itself. The media has internalized these heightened implications — the threat inflation that comes from Trump’s third presidential run and the very real possibility of a second term. And they have convinced themselves it is their mission to quite literally save democracy (itself!).

Take the recent panic we saw on CNN, when independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Erin Burnett’s show Monday night. Burnett pressed him whether the “threat to democracy that Trump poses” is really equal to Biden’s “evil.” “I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy,” Kennedy said, citing censorship efforts by the administration, as well as the denial of Secret Service protection to Kennedy himself. “He’s weaponizing the federal agencies.”

This momentary distraction from the consensus narrative could not stand on CNN. Immediately after the interview, the network brought on its chief “fact-checker,” Daniel Dale. Dale’s version of the fact-check was simply stating that there was “no evidence” President Biden was “personally” responsible for the Secret Service denial or the censorship, and then going on to explain why........

© The Hill