I mean, they do love Democrats. And they love John McCain. That’s 50+1 percent of the country right there. He’s no worse than half-wrong.

They couldn’t love “the American people” at this point if they wanted to. Even more than partisanship, it’s class that separates the media from much of the public. No class truly respects, let alone loves, a different class. They love the American people from their own class, sure. But below that? The emotions start at pity and deteriorate from there.

Blitzer’s responding to this Trump tweet, of course:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1006891643985854464

Trump’s been crooning that line for ages, at least since he was sworn into office, but I think Gregory’s largely correct that it’s not worth taking seriously anymore. Who’s the intended audience? Right-wingers have treated the media as enemy for at least 30 years. They don’t need POTUS to convince them. And Trump himself palpably couldn’t live without the press; without them he’d flop around and gasp for breath like a fish swept out of water. If the press packed it up and went home, he’d be banging on Maggie Haberman’s front door at 3 a.m. that night in full trembling withdrawal, demanding to do an interview to take the edge off.

For Trump, “the media is the enemy” is a slogan on the order of “lock her up.” It’s fun to riff on at rallies. It’s useful to him (and Mike Pompeo?) in a pinch, like today. It’s a great rallying point for party unity insofar as it exploits a shared Republican grievance involving a longstanding liberal antagonist. But he doesn’t really mean it, any more than the media means it when they say they, ahem, love the American people. It’s just Sh*t POTUS Says, like “we’re impartial” is Sh*t The Media Says. Here’s Blitzer via the Free Beacon.