Good so far?
Trump isn't the first president to be outraged by his treatment in the media nor the first to be driven nuts by leaks from within his administration. That's all par for the course. Trump's response has been different largely in the intensity of his counter-punches, calling the "dishonest" media "enemies of the American people," and hunting down leakers with the ferocity of Nixon's famous "plumbers."
Making the media an enemy on the scale of the Democratic Party rather than just a political pain in the ass is a new twist. Conventional wisdom has been that, in the end, the press always wins. Trump is acutely aware of the dramatic shifts in America's news sources and apparently convinced that in the new circumstances his attacks on the Gray Lady and other establishment media outlets can succeed. This is a really creative new approach to a very traditional White House problem, one that, if it succeeds, could change the face of America's communications industry.
Hunting down leakers is a much more traditional activity. It very seldom produces any clear cut administration victory and, in the case of Nixon and his tapes, created a catastrophe. Trump's plumbers seem a bit heavy-handed and unfamiliar with the vast, swampy terrain of Washington, DC. Unfortunately for the administration's long-term goals, media bashing is one of the most effective ways Trump has to tickle his voter base into squeals of delight. As his various tax and social programs run into increasing resistance on the Hill, scapegoating the media may be a destructive habit the White House won't be able to shake off.
