My argument in regards to the "forest fire" idiom you mentioned is partly based on this little snippet from a Slate interview with Trump's biographer Michael Kranish.
Why Donald Trump is like this.
Quote:
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..He personalizes America and sees it very much as he sees himself, as a country that is not sufficiently respected around the world, that carries certain resentments, which is partly what defines his affinity for the working class, at least in this very theoretical, abstract way. It’s really those personal affinities that shape his overall message far more than any consistent political ideology.
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The part that I bolded there is the key. Trump is not a traditional politician who is driven by some consistent political ideology based around party lines. Simply by running, winning and doing what he's currently doing he's disrupting the status quo enough to inevitabliy bring about the kind of reform that people hoped for from, say, a candidate like Bernie Sanders, who was also supposed to be a "real" Democratic leader as opposed to what Obama represented. So, in a weird way, Trump is the first Independent to actually win the POTUS even if he didn't win under some third party banner. He won't make "America great again", but it will wake enough people up to where 2020 could bring about something amazing.
Quote:
The psychological thing about Trump that I’ve always found the most interesting is that it’s clear that at some level what he craves is media and elite approval. At another level, it seems like he’s made his political career in such a way to almost guarantee that the media will dislike him, in terms of his ideology, such as it is, and attitude to truth. It’s an interesting paradox or irony or whatever the word is.
Kranish: It is, but it’s important always to realize that he doesn’t have an ideology, that he takes great pride in his flexibility, that he would just as happily have run as a liberal Democrat as a conservative Republican. He certainly has gone through his phases of life in any of those flavors.
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In regards to your comments on the media, I'm not disputing that the "alt right media" are seriously lacking in validity. At the same time however, you see EVERY conservative news source being demonized even if they actually have something interesting to point out. There's no room for diversity of thought in a media environment where the vast majority of big players are stacked up against the administration in a hostile manner, from subjects as massive as climate change to stupid garbage like "Trump gets two scoops of ice cream and guests only get one!111". Yeah Fox News aren't helping that situation, but in that case the liberal media should be the "adult" in this scenario and be the bigger man. But they aren't, and that's going to be the impetus to their eventual demise.
What we're seeing is more like a war between differing corporate agendas rather than a fight for the preservation of truth. There won't be a "glorious rebirth" of truth or media ethics, but you'll definitely see some key players in the mainstream media start to tank as ratings continue to fall because they are seen as obstructionist to Trump trying to make America a "safer" place or whatnot. But just remember: the media created Trump and put him where he is right now. And what's worse is, they can't put the genie back in the bottle. The more you look at it, the more inevitable our current situation seems to be.