From driftglass:
Of all the institutions that have failed the stress test of this election, none has gone up flames more spectacularly than the American political media. Sure, some people may say that the meltdown of the Republican Party was worse that the implosion of the punditocracy, but those people are stupid and wrong and you should not listen to them.
It is true that the meltdown of the GOP and the crackup of the media are deeply interrelated phenomena. However the meltdown of the GOP has come because the base of the party — bitter, proudly ignorant and often racist old white men who have been marinating in Fox News and Hate Radio bile for decades — have finally clawed their way out of the Southern Strategy basement lab where “respectable” Conservatives have keeping them for years, and broken out into the open. The Grand Old Party is falling apart because the true, ugly, raving heart of that party has finally emerged, loud, crazy and unashamed, running naked and amok for all to see.
The corporate media, on the other hand, has gone to pieces precisely because it continues to aggressively deny its true nature.