This weblog has been a critic of Donald J. Trump’s constant attacks on the legitimate press since he took office on January 20th. Make no mistake, his constant repetitive attacks are to Delegitimize the credible press that points out his deceptions and lies.
History provides a long list of demagogues and tyrants that have used the same rhetoric that Trump is using today. The end results for the people of the country they ruled? Lets just say it didn’t turn out well.
A free and independent press is one of the pillars of a democratic republic. Trump is attacking it because it is critical of him. For damn good reason. Anyone valuing the democratic republic built by our founders must resist Trump.
President Donald Trump ramped up his criticism of the news coverage of his administration Friday, again taking to his favorite social media platform.
“The FAKE NEWS media,” Trump wrote on Twitter, “is the enemy of the American People!”
An initial tweet put only The New York Times, CNN and NBC News on his enemies list. That message was quickly deleted, however, and replaced by an almost identical note that added two more domestic television networks: ABC and CBS.
The social media attack, the latest in a long series of Trump broadsides against the news media, came after the president had left Washington for a visit to a Boeing aircraft plant in South Carolina. The president later headed to Florida, where he is to spend the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago complex.
As the president arrived at the estate he has dubbed the Winter White House, social media and the networks crackled with debate about the significance of Trump calling some of the top American journalistic outlets enemies of the people, a phrase that goes back to ancient Rome and was used with chilling finality during the communist revolution in Russia a century ago.
U.S. diplomat recalls ‘petty tyrants’
“As an American diplomat, I stood up to petty tyrants who called journalists ‘enemies of the people,'” tweeted Tom Malinowski, former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. “Guess that’s not our policy anymore.”
“It is one of the most controversial phrases in Soviet history,” said Mitchell Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
The phrase has its roots in Latin, during the Roman Empire, but “enemies of the people” gained its most notorious associations during the 20th century, during the purges ordered by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin that killed tens of millions of people.
An “enemy of the people” in the Soviet Union was not necessarily a criminal, but more often someone stigmatized by social origin or pre-revolutionary profession. The label alone was akin to a terminal illness, and merely being a friend of an enemy of the people was a certain cause for official suspicion.
Read the full Voice Of America article and then YOU be the judge.
It becomes more important every day for the press to continue to highlight Trump’s lies and misdirections as he tries to make himself the sole source of truth.
Sad! So sad! Bigly so sad!
Agreed Jerry. Trump is about as far from truth as one can be. He is someone who is concerned only about himself and his self image. He’ll lie at will to further his interests regardless of cost or harm to anyone else.
Yes, Les, and then when the press calls him out on his lies, and proves that he is lying, he calls it fake news which, of course, is simply another lie.
His supporters never read the press. They simply listen to him and believe everything he says like a bunch of sheep. Theyntake the easy way out. They don’t have to read. They don’t have to think. They don’t have to evaluate and separate truth from fiction.
They simply have to believe. No proof required!
I recall the Republicans and conservatives talking about the dumbing down of America some years back. Of course it was the liberal institutions in higher education as well as the liberal journalists and newscasters that were doing the dumbing down. Republicans and conservatives then went about making their claim happen.
DJT is the culmination and crown jewel of the dumbing down movement. But I admit to being influenced by my own obsevation as well as reading actual news. sources that have credibility.