The Media and Trump: A Policy Feedback Loop

Coverage fuels his strategy, and the public stays in the audience.

COMMENTARY—The great American stage has once again lit up, curtains drawn on a new term of the Trump administration. But this ain’t your grandfather’s presidential production. No, sir. This one stomps and swaggers, improvises, forgets its lines, rewrites the script mid-show, and leaves the audience both aghast and applauding. And if you listen close enough, you can almost hear the old ghosts of policy past muttering, “Well, I’ll be.”

It’s clear that this administration came in with a conception—no, a conviction—of how to handle immigration. Not a vague idea floating in the ether, but a blueprint inked in the bold Sharpie strokes we’ve come to expect from the man in the golden tower. Raids? Check. Visa crackdowns? Check. Deportation highways with fewer speed limits? Triple check. All vintage Trump. But this time, he’s refined the formula.

Unlike previous presidents, who approached immigration with the gloved hands of bureaucratic subtlety and veiled language, President Trump treats it li…