This is why I didn't get it when all the news outlets would make a big deal out of some racist thing or other that Trump did while campaigning, it was obvious that the demographic of votes he was trying to win was the racist vote. Like so many other things, the media just played into his hands and what would be bad press to anybody else made him stronger.
I'm not going to say that we are on the worst timeline, but I'd definitely like to be on a better one.
The media made Trump because he drove "engagement". Also, purpose of the whole media circus is to create an illusion of political choice. To that end they always drone on about being "balanced". If one guy says two plus two is four and the other says it's five, they'll report on the "contoversy".