Finding balance where none exists

WHEN Donald Trump began his run for the White House, many people treated it as a joke. Nothing that he has done or said since makes him look better. On the contrary, his policy ignorance has become even more striking, his positions more extreme, the flaws in his character more obvious, and he has repeatedly demonstrated a level of contempt for the truth that is unprecedented in American politics.

Yet while most polls suggest that he is running behind in the general election, the margin is not overwhelming, and there is still a real chance that he might win. How is that possible? Part of the answer, I would argue, is that voters do not fully appreciate his awfulness. And the reason is that too much of the news media still cannot break with bothsidesism - the almost pathological determination to portray politicians and their programmes as being equally good or equally bad, no matter how ludicrous that pretence becomes.

Just to be clear, I am not arguing that distorted news coverage is the whole story, that nobody would support Trumpism if the media were doing their job. The presumptive Republican nominee would not have gotten this far if he were not tapping into some deep resentments. Furthermore, America is a deeply divided country, at least in its political life, and the great majority of Republicans will support their party's nominee no matter what. Still, the fact is that voters who do not have the time or inclination to do their own research, who get their news analysis from TV or regular news pages, are fed a daily diet of false equivalence.