Donald Trump’s onslaught against the key components of our democracy continues.
Smarting from press criticism of his Thursday new conference the president once again went on a full throated attack against the media. This time he stepped over the line.
Trump had called the presser ostensibly to announce his pick for Labor Secretary. The briefing quickly eroded into an hour long rant against the “dishonest media.”
The press responded, as they are won’t to do, by fact checking the president’s comments including the voluminous vitriolic statements made by the president to denigrate the fourth estate. The fact checkers found that while the president was excoriating the press for publishing what he referred to as “fake news” he issued over a dozen demonstrably false statements himself.
When the media subsequently reported on the new conference they noted the president’s false statements. Incensed over being outed once again for dealing in his own alternate universe our “fake news” president lashed out via twitter:
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCnews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people.”
I must say that Trump’s liberal use of incendiary language is often unsettling but labeling the fourth estate the “enemy of the people” is a bridge too far.
Other agreed; and Trump’s outrageous comment was refuted both at home and abroad.
Defense Secretary James Mattis said that he did not view the press as the enemy of the American people adding: “the press is a constituency that we deal with…I don’t have any issues with the press myself. “
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, attending an international security conference in Munich disagreed with Trump: “I stand by a free and independent press and have great respect for journalists. We’ve always done well in Germany when we mutually respect each other.”
Perhaps the most pointed response to Trump’s remark came from Senator John McCain. Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” McCain told moderator Chuck Todd: “We need a free press. We must have it, it’s vital. If you want to preserve… I’m very serious now…if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press….Without a free press we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time….That’s how dictators get started…When you look at history the first things dictators due is shut down the press. I’m not saying President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history…A fundamental part of the new world order is a free press… (Joking) I hate the press; I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you.”
Trump’s labeling of the press as the enemy of the people is not his first attempt at marginalizing the key institutions in our democracy. Trump has questioned the legitimacy of our electoral process; called into question the fairness of our judiciary and demonized the efforts of our intelligence community. All for having the audacity to speak truth to the almighty Trump.
I believe Trump came into this presidency believing that he could run the government in the same autocratic way that he ran his business. Autocracy may work when you are the sole owner of a business empire but that is not how a democracy works. Trump has yet to learn that lesson.
We as a country find ourselves at very precarious time in history. CEO Donald Trump is learning the painful civic lesson that there are limitations to serving as President. Through his own words and actions we can see that his intent is to fight through these checks and balances to gain more authoritarian control over the reins of power. In order to achieve that goal he goes about the business of denigrating the honesty, professionalism and validity of the institutions we hold dear. The lies and half-truths told along the way of little significance. For the accuracy of his pronouncements are of little consequence so long as they are believed by large numbers of the masses.
John McCain is right. This is how dictators get started.
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