Hate Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another

by Matt Taibbi

The year one increase in Trump’s defense budget that passed with overwhelming Democratic cooperation—85–10 in the Senate—was $82 billion, higher than the Iraq War appropriations for either 2003 or 2004. The two-year increase of $165 billion eclipsed the peak of annual Iraq War spending and is also higher than the entire military budget for either China or Russia. Yet what was the story about the defense bill? “Trump signs defense bill, but snubs the senator the legislation is named after—John McCain,” was the Washington Post headline. This was before McCain’s death. The Post assigned three reporters to this story—three!—and ripped Trump for having “name-checked” four other members of Congress, but not McCain—whom Trump, they wrote, “frequently disparages.” They quoted a mortified John Kerry, who seethed: “Disgraceful.”