Back in 2016, the Leftmedia, led by infotainment giants CNN and MSNBC, worked overtime to elevate Donald Trump. He was great for ratings, for one thing, but these Democrat propagandists also believed Hillary Clinton was a sure bet against him in the election. He proved them wrong on that count, of course, so they turned him into their biggest foil, incessantly playing off him for four years to build up their Resistance™ brand. And grow their ratings and advertising revenue.

For the Leftmedia, Trump was Hitler, the evil emperor, the devil in an orange-skin suit. He supposedly epitomized all the worst ills of society, from a bigoted racist buffoon to a conniving orchestrator of the greatest election heist of all time — 2016, that is, not 2020. In truth, Trump was the Leftmedia’s fall guy, the one on whom it could blame everything. There was no effort to offer any cogent argument against Trump’s policies, because its “orange man bad” trope trumped any need for honestly engaging in the very real issues facing the country.

The defeat of Trump became the Leftmedia’s primary reason for existing. Heck, Joe Biden never even had to leave his basement, as the Leftmedia did his campaigning for him. In fact, the less exposure to the public Biden had, the easier it was for the Leftmedia propagandists to promote him as the man to save America’s soul from Trump.

Following the election, however, the Leftmedia’s meteoric rise began to flatten. Oh, there were still the vestiges of the “enemy” that needed to be put down, as anyone raising questions over the integrity of the election, given the Democrats’ massive mail-in voting gambit, were treated as tinfoil-hatted kooks and enemies of the state. Then the Capitol riot provided the Leftmedia with its high-water mark, as conservatives and Trump supporters of all stripes were collectively condemned as “domestic terrorists” who needed to be expunged from polite society and even the public square. It was the perfect opportunity for Leftmedia activists to expand their cartoonish caricature of Trump supporters and all conservatives, and they took it without hesitation.

Yet as Trump’s presence has faded from public view, much of it due to Big Tech banning him, the Leftmedia’s ratings have faded with him. The hacks killed the goose laying the golden eggs. And their sycophantic coverage of Old Joe hasn’t come close to making up the difference. As Variety reported on Monday, “Viewership data across two key metrics — the target news demographic for people ages 25-54, and the total audience watching — shows that CNN ended the final week of January with ratings dropping roughly 44% for total audience versus the prior week across all three hours of primetime.”

Megyn Kelly, who was no fan of Trump yet still knows good journalism from bad, warned of this very phenomena in November. “They need him,” she asserted then. “As long as he stays somewhat active, [media outlets will] have a little bit more of a life span. But their ratings are going to go down, I have very little doubt: Without Trump in the office every day, there’s no way, especially CNN and MSNBC, sustain the numbers they are getting.”

Well, at least they’ve got the Democrats’ second impeachment trial charade to cover. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board gives one caveat: “[It] could be a sort of last hurrah for current programming strategies.” That may partially explain why the Leftmedia is pounding the drum for canceling conservative media outlets like Fox News. Essentially, the message is this: If you can’t beat ‘em, get 'em banned. It’s pathetic, but this is what the once-tolerant and open-minded Left has become.