The Resistance’s Breakup With the Media Is at Hand

The day after the 2016 election, I got a phone call from an old friend. Neither of us had slept much, and we spent most of the conversation exchanging shell-shocked comments of the Can you believe this? variety. Before we hung up, his voice took on a trace of irony. “Well,” he said, “this is going to be great for your career.”

I waved the remark away, but I knew he was probably right. My contentious relationship with Donald Trump was already paying professional dividends. A couple of years earlier, I’d written a widely read of the candidate-to-be after traveling with him to Mar-a-Lago. Trump responded to the story by throwing a theatrical tantrum, complete with Twitter insults, blacklist threats, and a hit piece. My publisher used Trump’s tweets to promote my book; had me on to recount my misadventures with “The Donald.” The further his havoc-wreaking campaign got, the more opportunities came my way—and I was hardly alone.