It was challenging to keep up with all of the news this past week, as well as the downright bizarre behavior of the current White House resident.
Some things still managed to stand out, and they are really quite disturbing—more disturbing than during a typical week with Individual 1 as president.
In less than two hours on Wednesday morning, Feb. 20, the leader of the free world once again attacked the press, promoted a dubious lawsuit against the press, and declared the press as the enemy of the people.
When a president is sworn in, he takes an oath of office. That oath, specifically calls out some of his duties.
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Thirty-five words are all it takes to be sworn in as president of the United States. Of those 35 words, the most important ones are preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. It’s a document that the current holder of the title president has never read, and he clearly has no idea what is in it. If he did, he would realize that his Wednesday morning tweets are undermining the U.S. Constitution. There is only one occupation called out in the Bill of Rights, and that is the press.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
At the same time this was going on, a small newspaper in Alabama published an editorial titled, “The Klan needs to ride again.” Now, if we lived in normal times, a president would use his stature and his office to speak out against an editorial calling for the Klu Klux Klan to ride again. But these are not normal times. The leader of our nation is a racist, he is not intellectually curious, and he has surrounded himself not with the best and brightest, but with white supremacists, sycophants, and rabble. When Hillary Clinton called his supporters deplorables, she was not wrong. As a matter of fact, she hit the nail right on the head.
While I strongly disagree with modern Republican governance, my feelings about Trump are not political in nature. He is simply not fit to be president. He is not fit to be leader of the free world. The leaders we elect reflect upon those they govern. Donald Trump is not, nor will he ever be a reflection of the United States of America.
That said, he is the reflection of the underbelly of hatred that has existed since the United States became a nation. In him and his followers, you see the excuses used to keep men and women in bondage. You see Jim Crow, and the Klan. You see in him the internment of U.S. citizens, just because of their heritage. You see fire hoses and dogs being unleashed on peaceful protesters. You see all the hatred—all of the things wrong with America, and nothing that is right with America.
George Lakoff wrote:
Trump isn’t a genius. He’s a super salesman, and has been for most of his life.
Now he’s president, and our gullibility to his antics threatens our democracy. That’s because Trump often uses social media to distract from what he’s actually doing, like dismantling our government and robbing the working class to pay off the rich. He often uses his tweet tantrums to “step on” big developments in the Russia investigation, creating a bigger story (“nuclear button!”) to distract attention.
With investigators closing in on Trump’s possibly treasonous Russia dealings, think of him as a trapped rat with a Twitter account. His attempts to distract will only intensify, but we must stop falling for them.
This doesn’t mean ignoring Trump. It means maintaining a steely focus on things that really matter, like the attack on our public institutions, the massive transfer of wealth and power to the rich, the resurgence of extreme racist politics, and the criminal investigation into the Trump Organization.
The tweets at the top of this post show Trump doing what he does best: selling his vision of the world to his cult members followers. Divide and distract is what he does. He is a vile human being and he always will be—nothing will change that.
He is violating his oath of office. Attacking the press does nothing more than put those who support him into ever-smaller and smaller media bubbles. If all you ever hear and read is Trump’s tweets and the right-leaning news he retweets, you would think he is under assault by the press. But the press calling him out on his lies, reporting on the evil things he has done, and continues to do? That is not the press assaulting him: It is the press doing the job of a Senate that has all but capitulated to Trump.
Trump’s attacks on the press are a danger not just to journalists doing their jobs, but to American democracy itself. A free and independent press is the vital lifeblood our republic needs to survive. A president who cannot handle criticism, who attacks the press in the manner Trump does, is flirting with fire and puts all Americans in danger.
There are rumors that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia will be released next week. Hopefully, it will force some Republican senators to stand with country over party, and move forward with removing the horrible mistake that Trump is from office.