Ron DeSantis is even more radical than Trump, according to the New York Times.

Because of course he is. The next Republican is always worse than the last. When Trump finally leaves the scene he will be praised by the MSM as far better than the current fascist Republican who wants to put people in chains. Mitt Romney spent his pre-campaign years giving women cancer and pining to enslave black people, but now he is a “good” Republican unlike today’s Republicans.

It’s an old script, but the media and the Left love it.

Trump elevated media-bashing into a high art for Republicans. But ahead of the next presidential race, DeSantis and others are taking a more radical approach: not just attacking nonpartisan news outlets, but ignoring them altogether. ⁦@grynbaum⁩ https://t.co/Ngql179F2T

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) January 10, 2023

Of course the MSM had a love/hate relationship with Donald Trump. On the one hand, they hate him with a passion. On the other, he is extremely good for business. His logorrhea was the gift that kept on giving. In the 2016 campaign the cable news channels would spend hours broadcasting his rallies live, and their contrived scandals provided endless hours of outrage orgasms for the hosts and viewers.

Ron DeSantis? The guy is dangerous, because he learned from Trump that the media is every Republican’s enemy. So he ignores them.

Beautiful. pic.twitter.com/8FCb9gnRL2

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) January 10, 2023

Me, I think that’s smart.

Assigned to cover the re-election campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, Miles Cohen, a young ABC News reporter, found himself stymied. The governor would not grant him an interview. Aides barred him from some campaign events and interrupted his conversations with supporters.

When Mr. Cohen was finally able to ask a question about the governor’s handling of Hurricane Ian, Mr. DeSantis shouted him down — “Stop, stop, stop” — and scolded the media for “trying to cast aspersions.” The DeSantis campaign then taunted Mr. Cohen on Twitter, prompting a torrent of online vitriol.

So on election night, Mr. Cohen decamped to a friendlier environment for the news media: Mar-a-Lago, where former President Donald J. Trump greeted reporters by name. “He came up to us, asked how the sandwiches were and took 20 questions,” Mr. Cohen recalled.

Mr. Trump, who heckled the “fake news” in his speech that evening, elevated media-bashing into a high art for Republicans. But ahead of the next presidential race, potential candidates like Mr. DeSantis are taking a more radical approach: not just attacking nonpartisan news outlets, but ignoring them altogether.

Nonpartisan news outlets? Name one, please. MSNBC? NYT? WaPo? Name one, New York Times-man. I assume that would include your august paper? Presumably every outlet but Fox News.

We are now in the media’s routine narrative-building exercise with this “worse than Trump” phase of attacking the rising star of the Republican Party. If Kemp, or Youngkin, or some other Republican starts to rise faster, they too will be worse than Trump.

Because the only thing that matters is the self-esteem of the media, and of course the ratings and clicks they can get for insulting the intelligence of the public.

Although he courted right-wing podcasters and conservative Fox News hosts, Mr. DeSantis did not grant an extensive interview to a national nonpartisan news organization during his 2022 re-election bid — and he coasted to victory, with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire now promoting him as a 2024 contender.

This take is fascinating, if you think about it. By what measure–other than the assessment of the MSM itself–is Fox News any more or any less partisan than any other news source? It seems obvious to the MSM that Fox News is partisan, but only because their own partisan biases are claimed to be irrelevant. I suspect the likelihood that a Fox News employee voted Democrat is actually higher than that of an MSNBC or CNN employee, and any Republican at the New York Time was purged long ago except as a token. Chris Wallace was a major figure at Fox, and he leans Left. A “conservative” on MSNBC would be Joe Scarborough.

You can get fired at the New York Times for allowing a Republican Senator to have an opinion expressed on the Op/Ed page, so it’s pretty rich for a NYT reporter to claim that Fox News is a partisan organization while the New York Times is “non-partisan.” Ask Bari Weiss about that.

Please. Give it a rest.

His success is an ominous sign for the usual rules of engagement between politicians and the press as another nationwide election looms. Presidential candidates typically endure media scrutiny in exchange for the megaphone and influence of mainstream outlets. But in an intensely partisan, choose-your-own-news era, the traditional calculus may have shifted.

“The old way of looking at it is: ‘I have to do every media hit that I possibly can, from as broad a political spectrum as I can, to reach as many people as possible,’” said Nick Iarossi, a longtime DeSantis supporter and a lobbyist in Tallahassee. “The new way of looking at it is: ‘I really don’t need to do that anymore. I can control how I want to message to voters through the mediums I choose.’”

The idea that Ron DeSantis is avoiding media scrutiny is ludicrous. He is subject not merely to scrutiny, but to constant slander by the media as evidenced by this very piece. Avoiding talking to hostile media outlets is a smart move on his part because, frankly, there is no legitimate reason to. The scrutiny and worse is still there; he just doesn’t cooperate with the smearing of his reputation. Good.

It’s not like they are trying to get his side of the story; they have one goal, and one goal only: destroy DeSantis. Why should he cooperate?

The MSM long ago gave up on reporting anything like a version of the truth. They spent years promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories about Trump, refuse to admit they were wrong, give each other awards for lying, and then complain when conservatives give up on cooperating with them?

In Florida, Mr. DeSantis occasionally spoke with local TV affiliates and entertained shouted-out questions from the state’s press corps. But a national contest would require him to introduce himself to a broader audience, and while a primary race would focus on Republican voters, it is often independents and centrists who decide the fine margins of the Electoral College. Although partisan podcasts and niche news sites are increasingly popular, few outlets can match the reach of traditional broadcast and cable networks.

“You can’t just talk to the friendly press and run TV ads and expect to win a nomination,” said Alex Conant, a partner at the consulting firm Firehouse Strategies who served as communications director to Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

“If you’re going to get elected president, you have to talk to people who have never watched Fox News,” said Mr. Conant, who believes the Republican Party’s underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms was partly due to an overreliance on speaking only to its base.

Representatives of Mr. DeSantis did not return a request for comment.

My friend Alex Conant has a point, but it isn’t really a good one. His assumption is that DeSantis could get anything approaching a fair hearing in the MSM. Clearly he cannot. They are on a jihad against him. “You can’t just talk to the friendly press and run TV ads and expect to win a nomination?”

Watch Ron DeSantis do it.