The Media Has At Least 23 Ideas About Who ‘Created’ Donald Trump

Blake Neff Reporter
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Donald Trump is winning state after state in the 2016 primary race, defying conventional wisdom and coming closer and closer to sewing up the Republican nomination. But as Trump marches to victory, the media keeps repeating one burning question: Just who “created” Trump?

Nobody can agree, it seems. And the wording is almost always about Trump being “created,” as though he was assembled from cadavers in Victor Frankenstein’s lab and then animated with lightning.

One commonly cited culprit is the Republican Party itself. “The G.O.P Created Donald Trump” declares New York Times opinion writer Nicholas Kristof, so confident in his analysis that he would later construct a fake interview with an imaginary Trump supporter in lieu of finding an actual one. The Boston Globe’s Renée Graham agrees, as does Dan Balz of The Washington Post.

But simply blaming the GOP at large is way too easy for some people, who demand greater specificity. Republicans’ “own unwillingness to govern created Donald Trump,” said Jason Easley, until he changed his mind a week later and decided that “Mitt Romney created Donald Trump” instead. DailyKOS thinks the Republican establishment bears the burden of creation, a view shared by law professor Randy Barnett. Michael C. Bender, in one of the first articles speculating on Trump’s “creation,” blamed Jeb Bush and Scott Walker. Or maybe it was the amorphous blob of “the Republican noise machine” that created Trump.

But why blame Republicans and not their political enemies? According to Bobby Jindal, “President Obama Created Donald Trump.” The Guardian’s Simon Heffner mostly agrees, specifically saying that “seven years of Obama created Donald Trump,” although the U.S. actually only had about six years of Obama before Trump was “created.” Ben Shapiro finds not one, not two, but seven different reasons to think Obama created trump.

Not so fast, says Slate. “Obama Didn’t Create Trump,” says William Saletan, “The GOP’s opposition to Obama did.” Lauren Victoria Burke blames “the people who hate Obama” for Trump’s unholy creation.

Not everybody is fixated on Obama. “The Left’s Immigration Tactics Created Donald Trump,” says The Federalist contributor Greg Jones. Red Alert Politics’ Anthony Hennen says Hillary Clinton created Trump. The Libertarian Republic suggests that “Social Justice Warriors Created Donald Trump,” while Tom Nichols of The Daily Beast blames the “P.C. police.”

Some members of the media would rather take the credit themselves, though. Paul Waldman of The Week argues “The media created Donald Trump,” while Slate’s Jamelle Bouie is more specific and says that “Donald Trump is a Conservative Media Creation.” Jack Schafer of Politico is uncertain, though; the media probably didn’t create Trump, or maybe it did, by accident, by trying to not create him. Who knows?

Some single out particular journalists and outlets. Michael Cannon is happy to explain how “David Brooks created Donald Trump,” a view endorsed by Elias Isquith over at Salon. Mike Papantonio of Ring of Fire says Fox News not only created Donald Trump but also “destroyed” the Republican Party in a stunning double move.

CNN’s Chris Cuomo, at least, offers a small mercy by suggesting Glenn Beck deserved blame for “birthing” Donald Trump, rather than creating him in a lab.

The list of culprits only balloons from there. Did the nation as a whole create Trump, or only the “pissed” people? Or maybe no one created Trump? Or perhaps the blame lies with Vince McMahon for wrestling Donald Trump at Wrestlemania?

Oddly, nobody seems to be pointing towards the most obvious culprit for creating Trump. According to most conventional accounts, sometime around mid-October in 1945 Mary Anne MacLeod Trump had sex with somebody, probably her husband Fred Trump. That produced a fertilized egg, which was dubbed “Donald John Trump” when it was born nine months later. Perhaps the Trumps deserve more credit for Trump’s creation than a bunch of politicians and media hacks born 10-50 years later.

Also, nobody (or at least, nobody with a platform) has suggested another strong possibility: Maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump created himself.

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