Enjoy this brief moment of self-reflection and candor from the media while it lasts. Regardless, they need to pay a heavy price this time.

We’re watching the immediate post-2016 election aftermath happen all over again. The news media are reluctantly conceding defeat to Donald Trump and finally admitting the obvious.

On the New York Times’ “The Daily” podcast, reporter Astead Herndon was one such illuminating case. “I just feel as if, whether it is ‘democracy,’ whether it is lecturing Americans, saying inflation is actually not that bad, that there has been a tone coming from Democrats to tell people the problems that they had are not legitimate,” he said. “And I think that is at the core of their problems in this race. It’s hard for me not to go back to the fact that when these issues were most clear and they had a chance to speak to those concerns, they decided not to and they decided to double down on this administration, to double down on the incumbent.”

That’s true but not so fast, sweaty. The media don’t get to act like mildly concerned bystanders now positioned to offer a sober account of what just happened. Kamala Harris’s defeat is every bit theirs as it is the Democrat Party’s, arguably even more so. The media banked that they still had enough cachet, even just by a sliver, to do the impossible — insist to American voters that what they could see and feel wasn’t real in order to hoist history’s most feckless individual into the world’s most powerful office.

In the past two years, they spent everything they had. First they denied the reality that the Kamala-Biden administration was a failure. Then they denied the reality that President Biden was incapable of fulfilling his official duties. Then they denied the reality that he couldn’t possibly run for a second term. Then they denied the reality that Kamala was responsible for the appalling condition of this country. Then they denied the reality that any of this was anything but normal — attempting to imprison a political opponent and then inspiring at least two assassination attempts.

They told us up to the very end this was a close race; that Kamala really could be our next president; that despite all human experience, testimony, and intuition, Kamala was actually popular.

It wasn’t close, she couldn’t be president, and she wasn’t popular. As of this writing, it looks as if she lost every single swing state.

What they did on behalf of Kamala is child’s play relative to what they did to Donald Trump. They accused him of abetting future violence. They said the millions of people who supported him would be responsible for ending the republic. All the while, they dismissed the reality that the very things they accused Trump of were already being perpetuated by Democrats. The media said not a word.

There’s no going back. There’s no amount of post-election analysis or amends to account for the straight-up psychological abuse that we experienced for the past two years at the hands of our media. Not that it should make a difference but where is the apology?

There won’t be an apology and even as they concede Kamala’s defeat, they won’t offer what’s needed — a full and unconditional surrender. They can’t be trusted. Without that, they deserve every degree of hell to be heaped on them, by the voters and yes, by the incoming Trump administration. Let it come in every way possible.