Likewise, Trump’s efforts to block meaningful investigations into his conduct have backfired, leading to the Robert Mueller inquiry and to congressional inquiries of obstruction of justice. His dangling of federal pardons before former associates encouraged state investigations. He has personally genuflected before Vladimir Putin, but his administration policy on Russia has ended up rather tougher. And his rogue behavior helped Democrats seize the House of Representatives.

Trump has regularly demonized journalists as “enemies of the people,” but reporters have not been intimidated. As I’ve often written, I thought we in the news media did not do well during the 2016 campaign, but the competition today between The Washington Post and The New York Times is the best kind of newspaper war, keeping America straight.

Gallup finds that public approval of newspapers, while still low, is up a little since 2016 even as Trump has excoriated them.