Opinion: Trump is selling himself. Readers say the L.A. Times shouldn’t help him
On Monday night, Donald Trump said on social media: “The LA Times loves me. I love the LA Times.”
To be certain, he did not say he loves the newspaper; he said he loves the president, who he has served with the exception of the last month.
The fact of the matter is that if you ask the more than 200,000 people who were engaged with the Los Angeles Times this election, they will tell you they want a president who speaks the truth. They want a president who puts his foot down. They want a president who doesn’t hold back when telling an opposing party it won’t negotiate if it doesn’t get its way.
But what they also want, more than anything else, is a president who treats them with civility. A president who can look them in the eye and tell them they aren’t alone and that others care about them.
The LA Times has a reputation for saying one thing and doing another. With so many of the newspaper’s contributors, columnists and reporters willing to be published anywhere, they are often ignored. But that’s not the case with Trump, who is at his core a populist who speaks boldly in print before his audience of one.
But with all of the issues he has raised since entering the presidential race months ago, the paper’s readers and many of its journalists, many of whom are women and minorities, have been unable to see past what they consider his shortcomings.
What do people really want from their president? Do they want a president who plays the game of the establishment or one that isn’t afraid to challenge?
To his supporters, Trump’s refusal to apologize to his opponent in last year’s Election Day debate is proof