The state of perpetual outrage

This is a really good article via the Week about the relationship between Trump and the press: "The media should stop playing dumb about Trump."  This is the key graf:

Trump frequently lies. He makes things up. But he isn't always lying or making things up. Sometimes he's just saying things in his very strange speaking style. And usually in such cases, it's pretty easy to tell what he's talking about, if you really listen and think. Instead, the media plays dumb and scores cheap points that ultimately undermine the press. It's bad journalism. Stop doing it.

This echoes something I remember from the election: the press took Trump literally but not seriously while voters took him seriously but not literally.  For example, IIRC, a lot of voters didn't really believe that Trump was going to "build that wall" but took it to mean that he was determined to address illegal immigration.  The press was so ready to pounce on the absence of a discrete event with "last night in Sweden" that they glossed over the larger issue to gain some points.  Then the press wonders why Americans' confidence in the media has dropped so much.