Ezra Klein notes that Trump ran on draining the swamp, and voters believed him, giving him an edge over Clinton on rooting out corruption. Ironic. But worth asking how that happened 1/ vox.com/2018/8/22/1776…
Remember, he also had an edge on perceptions of honesty. And these weren't just the Trump shoot-em-on-5th-avenue base, who aren't a majority; this has to have included a number of educated voters, including white women 2/
Yet Trump's corruption and dishonesty were always obvious to anyone who dug even slightly. So how did he get away with it? The answer, surely, lies in mainstream media coverage -- in breathless reporting about emails etc. 3/
It was the AP, not Fox News, that portrayed Clinton's meeting with a Nobel laureate who also happened to have donated to the Clinton Foundation as a major scandal. Meanwhile, Trump scandals tended to get one article, then fade from coverage 4/
So many voters came away with the impression that Clinton was as or more corrupt than a guy who was more or less literally a mobster. This was a huge journalistic failure. And my impression is that all too many editors still don't get it 5/
