I was really trying to avoid a political discussion on the
blog this month. Truly, I was. But President Trump’s attacks on the press
have crossed a line, and I cannot remain silent about this.
Trump has been attacking the press for months, claiming that
they are “treating him unfairly”, that they are not covering the truth. He has gone on record saying that much of the
coverage directed at him from mainstream news outlets is nothing but “fake news.” He has suggested that every negative poll
about him is somehow fake. He has even
attacked individual news outlets simply because they won’t give him favorable
coverage (which is laughable, because objectivity is a requirement of
journalism). We’ve watched these things
for months, but we believed them to be nothing but the musings of a
narcissistic coward. Unfortunately, they
were more than that.
On Friday, February 24, 2017, he did something nobody
expected of him. Sean Spicer, his press
secretary, held an informal press briefing (often called a “gaggle”), but
instead of letting the normal press pool in, he made the decision to exclude
multiple news outlets. Among the banned
outlets were CNN, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico, and
foreign outlets such as The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and the BBC. AP News was allowed in to the briefing, but
declined in protest of the other outlets being banned.
On that same day, Trump sent out yet another tweet
complaining about the media, but this was different. This tweet actually affirms Spicer’s decision
to ban multiple outlets from his briefing.
It reads as follows:
“The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC,
@CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
In the span of a few hours, Trump banned multiple news
outlets from a briefing, and then called those outlets “the enemy of the
American people.” Think about this. Really think about this. This is nothing less than an attack on the
Freedom of the Press, which is enshrined in the First Amendment.
Supporters have offered up defenses of these actions,
ranging from “Well, Obama did it (no, he didn’t; he BRIEFLY refused to engage
with Fox News, but relented after an outcry that such an action violated the
Freedom of the Press, which it does),” to “Being allowed into press conferences
isn’t a right; it’s a privilege.” But
these actions are indefensible.
Government press conferences and briefings ARE NOT by “invitation
only.” They are required to be open to
the press. Anything less is an attack on
the First Amendment, and, worse still, a step on the road to fascism.
Since the rise of fascism in the 1930s, countless scholars
and experts have written on the defining characteristics of it. There have been numerous discussions on the
history of fascism, on how it can rise.
We need to better understand it in order to ensure that we never have
another Hitler or Mussolini. One of the
most well-known papers on this was written by Umberto Eco, a novelist who grew
up in Italy during Mussolini’s reign.
His essay (you can read the full essay at: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1995/06/22/ur-fascism/)
distills fascism down to fourteen simple points in order to make it more easily
understood. The Fourth point reads as
follows:
“No syncretistic faith
can withstand analytical criticism. The critical spirit makes distinctions, and
to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific
community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge. For Ur-Fascism,
disagreement is treason.”
Simply put, Eco is arguing that fascists will do anything
and everything in their power to suppress dissent, to the point of using
violence against them. Hitler and the
Nazis were known for executing dissenters, and it is a tactic used by many
other kinds of dictators as well. Trump
may not be having people killed, but he is attacking anyone who disagrees with
him, including the press. Any report
that criticizes or disagrees with him is automatically “fake news”, and fake
news, in his own words, “is the enemy of the American people.”
I am not saying that Trump is necessarily a fascist. Frankly, I still have trouble determining his
exact motives because his obstinance, arrogance, and terrible communication
skills make him somewhat difficult to read.
But his recent actions towards the media and towards anyone who dares
criticize him should raise an alarm with anyone because only authoritarian
rulers take such actions. Do we really
want our president to be in the same league as someone like Putin, who has had
journalists killed just for speaking the truth?
No. Going anywhere near that is a
direct subversion of our values, and it must not be tolerated. The press is imperfect, to be sure, but that
doesn’t mean Trump’s attacks are warranted.
These attacks threaten the very basis of our republic, and they must not
be tolerated. More importantly, we
cannot sacrifice our values and still consider ourselves great. To quote the Bible, from Matthew 16:26, “What
good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?”
Our founders understood the inherent need for the press (even
though some of them disdained the press) because they ensure that we do not
live in an echo chamber. We all know
someone who lives in such a chamber, and they tend to be very ignorant and
close-minded, simply because they are not challenged enough. Having our thoughts and beliefs challenged is
how we learn and grow. When we go to
school, we are exposed to new concepts, new ways of thinking that expand our
worldview. But that can’t happen if we
only listen to those who share our worldview.
The same is true of our government; they must be challenged so that they
can grow and adapt. Without a challenge,
a government will inevitably die, particularly one based in Democracy. The press represents that challenge because
they can help us to hold our leaders accountable, and because they give us a
voice. We cannot hold our government
accountable if we don’t know what they are doing, and the press is the
instrument that spreads that knowledge.
The bottom line is that, whether Trump or his supporters
like it or not, we need the press. We
need to be able to disagree with him.
Democracy is about openness and respecting the opinions of others; each
person is supposed to have a voice. We
may not be a true Democracy, but our republic is built on those same
values. Our country has never believed
in punishing someone just for speaking out, which is why we enshrined the right
to do so in the First Amendment to the Constitution. Trump took an oath to defend the
Constitution, and he is breaking it every time he attacks, denigrates, and excludes
the press.
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