Activists with Democrats.com, a site of progressive and Democratic Party activists, are circulating a petition demanding CNN and MSNBC “stop promoting Donald Trump’s racist presidential campaign.”

(The idea that CNN and MSNBC are “promoting his campaign” will probably come as a surprise to Trump and his supporters.)

The petition is more than a little contradictory. Yes, Trump is getting way more coverage than anyone else; one study concluded that between January and November, Trump’s campaign was covered for 234 minutes on the three newscasts. Jeb Bush’s campaign was covered for 56 minutes; Ben Carson’s, for 54. Hillary Clinton received 113 minutes; Bernie Sanders, 10.

More than a few Republicans might concur with the petition’s assertion that, “Desperate for ratings, the cable news networks have decided to broadcast nearly-continuous coverage of Donald Trump’s campaign at the expense of giving real issues the coverage they deserve. As policy fights play out in the halls of power in Washington, DC, large swaths of the electorate remain uninformed, with cable news coverage largely limited to live coverage of Trump campaign rallies and shouting matches between pundits over whether Trump’s latest racist proposal will help or hurt him among Republican primary voters.”

But then the petition demands, “We aren’t suggesting that MSNBC and CNN should ignore Donald Trump entirely…”

How big of them!

“…but the near-continuous coverage of recent weeks has got to stop. And when they do cover Trump, they should contextualize their coverage by pointing out his long history of racism, Islamophobia and hate.” Yes, because if there’s anything that MSNBC and CNN lack, it’s talking heads calling Trump racist, Islamophobic, hateful, etc.

There’s no way the networks will voluntarily turn away from such a ratings magnet. Remember when NBC loudly proclaimed it was cutting ties with Trump because of “the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants”? That was at the end of June. By November, NBC had invited him back to host Saturday Night Live.