President Donald Trump’s campaign was gracious enough to allow members of the media to use its free WiFi network over the weekend at a rally in Wisconsin, but there was a catch.
Anyone looking to connect at the Waukesha rally had to ask themselves who built the facilities that house children separated from their parents — or, in some cases, coyotes — at the country’s border with Mexico.
Numerous viral images posted on Twitter show the campaign handed out cards with the login credentials for the WiFi network.
In order to connect to the campaign’s “Make America Great Again” network, media members needed a password: “WhoBuiltTheCagesJoe?”
The password was a reference to Trump’s viral debate moment with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Thursday when the issue of migrant detention centers was brought up.
On the issue of migrant children being detained under his administration, the president argued that illegal immigrant children are being brought into the country by human traffickers and drug cartels.
Trump also reminded viewers and Biden that it was him and former President Barack Obama who were responsible for the illegal immigrant detention centers the current administration inherited.
During the discussion, the president asked his Democratic opponent, “Who built the cages, Joe?”
The president never got a clear answer on the subject from Biden, but we know that indeed the Obama administration was behind the policy of separating children and adults at the border.
Trump’s campaign made sure not to let that question die in Wisconsin on Saturday, using the question as its WiFi password.
This was definitely a good example of trolling on the part of the campaign, but it’s so much more than that.
At campaign rallies, members of the establishment media generally congregate together, and they tend to view Trump and his supporters, and indeed all conservative Americans, as beneath them.
That’s a generalization, but by and large it’s true.
I’ve seen this as a national reporter for alternative media outlets and as a quiet newsroom conservative in a local media market.
At political rallies, there is a notion even among competing establishment news agencies that they’re all on the same team.
This year, it’s Team Joe for the media, and that team is working around the clock to spin, twist and hide the truth in order to help get Biden elected.
Members of the country’s broken establishment media want nothing more than an abrupt end to Trump’s presidency and his massive political movement.
Facts don’t matter to many of them — and they don’t just lie to you, they lie to themselves about the successes of the president’s policies and the failures of those of the previous administration.
Colleges and universities churn out young media professionals who have been programmed to think only one way, and when they arrive inside these newsrooms, they become further insulated from other ideas.
But small things — like the move by Trump’s campaign to make them type out the phrase “WhoBuiltTheCagesJoe?” — probably go further than one might imagine.
For one brief moment Saturday, you would think, typing in that WiFi network key likely forced someone habitually stuck in a pattern of self-deception to stop and ask an uncomfortable question.
Many of them know the answer. They would just prefer not to ask it, not even to themselves.