Between 2010 and 2016, digital subscriptions remained insignificant from a business perspective. The news media wooed the digital progressives, but it was not until the conservative demographic—and Trump—arrived as forces on social media that the news media started raking in digital subscriptions. Until then, the mainstream media did not have any commodity to offer their newly chosen referential group. Trump helped fix that. He became that missing commodity immediately after his shocking victory. The mainstream media understood the signal, upgraded Trump from amusement to existential danger, and started selling the Trump scare as a new commodity.

The media quickly learned to solicit subscriptions as support for a noble effort—the protection of democracy from “dying in darkness,” as the Washington Post put it. A new business model emerged, soliciting subscriptions as donations to a cause. Donations required triggers that the love-hate alliance of Trump and the media readily supplied. The crucial part of the new business model was not just Trump himself but the significant number of his supporters. The most terrifying thing was that fully half the electorate supported such a “monster” (in the view of the other half).

By no means were the media interested in mitigating this divide. They needed to maintain frustration and instigate polarization to keep donors scared, outraged, and engaged. The news media reminded readers how outrageous the outrageous events were, and their focus turned toward such events. As the scare came to replace news as a commodity, the mainstream media switched from news supply to news validation.

Both ends of the political spectrum were involved. Right-wing outlets also tried to sell scare instead of news—the scare of losing ground and country. The new business model made the media the agents of polarization. They organically joined to the mechanisms of polarization that had formed in the larger media environment—on the Internet and social media. Some mainstream media grew their digital subscriptions severalfold during Trump’s tenure.