Donald Trump’s response this week to his fourth criminal indictment in five months follows a strategy he has used for years against legal and political opponents: relentless attacks, often infused with language that is either overtly racist or is coded in ways that appeal to racists.
He has a diehard fan base because he appeals to that fan base because of what he says and does.
Most if not all of those folks long ago wrote off any media that doesn’t align with their worldview. They don’t go to Huffpost or even NPR for info they go to Fox or even OANN or similar. They also tend not to be very skilled at critical thinking in reviewing the sources of their information. So they don’t get multiple perspectives, just one carefully curated one from a much less trustworthy source.
Anyone who between 2015 and 2020 was getting their news from an array of relatively trustworthy sources with a range of biases and who also digs for audio/video clips of quotes in full context, corroborating stories, additional details, and source documents is someone who has seen sufficient quantity and quality of evidence. That evidence includes Trump saying things, making decisions, and taking actions that are consistent with being bigoted against minorities, women, disabled people, and so forth.
That doesn’t make him worse than Hitler since he hasn’t exterminated millions of people so far.
Anyone who thinks the press demonized him isn’t very good at forming evidence-based beliefs and probably needs to work hard on that so they will no longer be grifted endlessly.