After writing seven anti-Trump columns in the past 18 months, I decided to lay off for awhile. Until last weekend, that is, when Trump all but declared war on the press.
We in the media must – and will – take his threat seriously. That is why I feel compelled to speak out – once again – against Trump’s narcissistic versions of reality.
In one of his ego-restoration rallies last Saturday, he thrilled his fanatical crowd.
“When the media lies to people, I will never ever let them get away with it,” he promised, forgetting that when presidents lie to the people, the press won’t let them get away with it.
In his Tweet du Jour, Trump proclaimed, “The FAKE NEWS media is not my enemy, it’s the enemy of the American People.”
In describing media, the president uses words that include dishonest, corrupt, fake and disgusting. What’s almost funny is Trump could be using those words to describe himself if he would just take time to examine his own ruthless tactics.
As TV news commentator Joe Scarborough reminded us, people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and Trump, he added, “lives in the biggest glass house there is.”
Trump slaps the label “fake news” on anything he doesn’t like. It’s anything that does not reflect his glorious, bloated vision of himself. In other words, fake news is anything that points out Trump’s distortions, exaggerations, hypocrisy, dishonesty and – let’s face it – his windstorm of flat-out lies.
Here are just some recent doozies:
- The crowds at his inaugural were the biggest in history.
- At least three million people voted fraudulently for Hillary Clinton.
- His victory was the biggest electoral-vote since Ronald Reagan’s.
- Crime in the United States is at a 47-year high.
- The Trump administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.
- People who rally against Trump are “paid protestors.”
- Hillary Clinton gave Russia 20 percent of the uranium from the United States.
- There was a terrorist attack the other day in Sweden.
- Any negative polls are fake news (except for a Rasmussen poll that showed Trump has a 55-percent approval rating). To Trump’s mind, that poll is real news, good news.
Trump’s own fake news could fill a newspaper – every day of the week.
When the press points out Trump’s whoppers, he responds with lame excuses, like “Well, that’s what I heard, anyway.” And when he isn’t attempting to spoon-feed the press nonsense, his spokespeople are, such as Kellyanne Conway, giving us “alternative facts” like the non-existent “fact” of a terrorist massacre in Bowling Green.
And when Trump isn’t spewing ego-delusions based on lies, he’s being the hypocrite. For example, he relished the leaks against Hillary and even publicly challenged the Russians to release even more Hillary leaks, but now he is viciously railing against leakers – now that the leaks are pointing his way.
This is not to claim there have not been some inaccurate news stories regarding Trump and/or his advisors. And this is not to argue the press is beyond criticism; it certainly is not. We who work in the media, locally and nationally, receive a barrage of negative comments, sometimes fair, mostly not. To many critics, “accurate” reporting means something they agree with. Like Trump, if they don’t agree with something, they call it “inaccurate” or “fake news.”
Trump is not the first president to dislike the press. But he is the first to be so hostile to the point of suggesting the media are the “enemy,” as if they are un-American traitors.
In his war with media, the president is setting himself up for a fall. He plays upon the public’s current mistrust of the press, which is partly due to his and his followers’ scapegoating tactics. But those anti-media verbal assaults are backfiring in many quarters, including among many Republicans.
Since Trump’s anti-press rants, support for media is increasing. The “failing” New York Times, as The Donald dubs it, is experiencing a huge subscription increase. So is the Washington Post, another newspaper he reviles. Ratings of TV news channels are climbing. And that’s good news; the push-back against Trump’s war has begun.
Our Founding Fathers knew full well how important a free press is to keeping elected officials accountable and keeping America free – thus the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
While Trump & Co. bask in their “alternative facts,” while they keep attacking the press, the judiciary and intelligence agencies, we are confident those three forces will preserve democracy through checks-and-balances – just the way the framers of the Constitution intended.