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How conservative media covered Trump’s first week

Americans truly inhabit two worlds, with some shedding tears of sorrow at the arrival of Donald Trump’s second presidency. Others also cried – with joy.

Across the conservative, “post-liberal” and alternative media spheres, journalists, pundits and some social media circles celebrated the end of the Biden era with the enthusiasm of rebels overthrowing the relics of a collapsing dictatorship. As Trump swore his presidential oath, writer Walter Kirn, a pro-Trump, anti-establishment agitator on Ancien regime. “

That sentiment was widely shared, with right-wing pundits framing Trump’s inauguration as “regime change” and “revolutionary” and mocking the “panic attacks” of liberal late-night hosts and MSNBC anchors. The conservative urban journal described Trump’s inauguration as “exciting”, arguing that it was “safe to be a white man again” (while also criticizing Trump’s speech for not offering “any appeasement to the previous administration” criticized).

Some commentators triumphantly proclaimed Trump’s return part of a broader right-wing populist sweep across the world. A New York Post a few days before the inauguration argued that Trump’s “Smashing Victory is inspiring conservative parties in Canada, Europe and elsewhere to get off the mat and fight to reverse their countries’ progressive slide into to reverse oblivion.” Canada’s Liberal Party is expected to suffer a coronation loss to the Conservatives this year.

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Elon Musk’s Nazi salute-esque hand gesture received minor coverage on the right, with most outlets either not covering it, dismissing it as meaningless, or sharing memes showing examples of Democratic politicians making similar gestures. (Musk has mocked the suggestion that it was a Nazi salute without apologizing; the Anti-Defamation League immediately issued a statement defending him, before backtracking when Musk started making Nazi puns on X.)

But some cracks were visible on the right side.

After Trump announced he was canceling the flights of 1,600 Afghan refugees — including families whose lives are in danger because they worked with the U.S. occupation — Jay Nordlinger, a conservative journalist, commented on X: “In August 2021, many Republicans said we said had betrayed the Afghans. What will they say now? “

One commenter replied: “Not a damn thing, for our eternal shame.”

Trump’s decision to launch a “$Trump” cryptocurrency three days before it hit was polarizing, with some posters on conservative and cryptocurrency Reddit forums comparing it to a “pump-and-dump” scheme . Disbelieving maga enthusiasts online called the meme coin “ridiculous”, an “L” (lose), and nothing more than encouraging “gambling addiction”.

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On the other hand, conservatives responded mainly by taking note of Trump’s flurry of week-one orders that dismantle the IA and affirmative action, declaring an emergency at the southern border, in an end.

Trump’s decision to commute the sentences or pardon 1,500 January 6 rioters — some of whom attacked police officers — was widely praised, with the condemnations dismissed as overzealous. The amnesty was “the end of a persecution nightmare”, Blazemedia declared.

Fox News devoted a number of segments and articles this week to shadowing the ice raids that have already arrested hundreds of migrants. The coverage highlighted arrests of sex offenders, alleged gang members and people with lengthy rap sheets, as well as a looming showdown between the federal government and “sanctuary cities” that have vowed not to cooperate with immigration authorities.

Conservative coverage argued that even residents of liberal cities support the raids. Recent New York Times polling suggests that 44% of Democrats support deporting undocumented immigrants who arrived during the Biden administration, although polling shows less support for mass deportations if they separate families or push people out of America for long periods of time.

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Conservative outlets have also been closely following the death of a federal border agent near the Canadian border and a shooting attack on hikers in Southern California that the U.S. Border Patrol says was carried out by Mexican cartel scouts.

However, some were less happy with Trump’s move to reinstate Tiktok. The conservative Jewish magazine Tablet described a ‘danger that the combination of Tiktok’s popularity, the president’s deal and the interests of some of its donors will ‘Save’ Tiktok—and thus provide a foreign adversary with a propaganda Ray aimed to to be focused fourfold in the minds of more than 170 million Americans—seems like a win-win arrangement.”

Meanwhile, an ugly recent debate over H-1B visas in foreign workers—which caused a schism between the “Silicon Valley” faction of the pro-Trump right, who favor these visas, and populist maga nationalists, who hate them— keeps coming back. Steve Bannon, of the latter camp, uses podcast and media appearances to repeatedly accuse Musk and other tech “oligarchs” of being a malign influence on Trump.

For now, the conservative media sphere is overjoyed at Trump’s second coming—but the internal tensions of his new coalition may still be bubbling.

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