America has attained peak gaslight. It happened when the President of the United States tweeted a report by 'Breitbart' that a poll found "the media failed to gaslight public about Trump campaign spying."

While the big focus this week is on the funds raised by the 2020 Democratic presidential primary contenders, the real story is in the war chest accumulated by the incumbent, and what his campaign is doing with it. Following Q1 Federal Elections Commission filings by the Democrats, the party's story is the dominance of funds raised by Bernie Sanders, and secondarily by Kamala Harris. But it is two relative newcomers -- Beto O'Rourke and Pete Buttigieg -- that analysts are trumpeting as the story within that story.

The perceived credibility of major U.S. news organizations has been trending downward since the 2016 election, but most of it has been driven by sentiment from Republican voters. According to the latest tracking from Morning Consult, the share of Americans rating nine leading news outlets as credible has dropped an average of five percentage points over the past three years. Among Republicans, it feel an average of 12 percentage points.

When does a hard-to-pronounce brand name change from a liability to an asset? When pundits and the news media give an assist by providing mnemonic devices on the proper way to say it. That's what's happened to Pete Buttigieg in the weeks since he emerged as a serious Democratic presidential contender.