Fractured Reality

The right says the media is the enemy. Part of the new (old) "stabbed in the back" explanation for defeat? Focusing anger on the putative villain as an act of preemption?

One explanation: Triumphalism.

Multi-word explanation: If a group is utterly convinced it is on the side of Right, Virtue, and God, then the only possible explanation for not achieving its goals must be betrayal. Thus, the Right's continual back-patting and claims to Absolute Righteousness precondition it to perceive it's own failings/failures as a consequence of the actions of an enabler for their foes, which must be, since they are good, bad, evil-intentioned people.

Triumphalism has repeatedly poisoned American politics, with McCarthyism as the clearest example. (McCarthy vs. the State Department, said to have "lost" China, since no other alternative explanation--like the GMD's gross corruption and incompetence--could possibly explain how the "Good Guys" could have failed so miserably.)