reflectivepundit

What Donald Trump Can Learn from George Washington’s and John Adam’s Problems with the Press

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Donald Trump, as candidate and far more as the 45^th US President, has relentlessly attacked news media and individuals therein for reporting critically on his and his administration’s politics and policies.

Reporting that the president does not like becomes “fake” news in White House jargon.

Trump has threatened to change the libel laws, presumably having the Supreme Court overturn the New York Times vs. Sullivan ruling that makes it next to impossible for public figures to prevail in libel actions against news organizations.

Trump should read a history book to get some sense of previous presidents’ experiences with the press. He would first of all learn that some earlier presidents had a much harder time with the press than he ever could imagine.

A good time to look at would be the 1790s and the presidencies of George Washington and John Adams, both Federalists who were vilified constantly by the Republican presses of their times.

The most influential Republican (Anti-Federalist) paper was the Aurora in Philadelphia published and edited by Benjamin Bache, grandson of Benjamin Franklin, who hired writers like William Duane and James Callender.

Bache and his newspaper, more than any other Republican newsman and press, were constant thorns in both presidents’ hide.

Bache described President George Washington’s “comportment as ‘that of a monarch,’ his governance as the ‘apish mimickry of kingship,’ his ‘pompous carriages, splendid feasts, and tawdry gowns’ and his encouragement of the public celebration of his birthday.”

Since Bache’s Aurora was very influential in that it informed the content of many other Republican newspapers around the country, Washington war quite upset—but instead of publicly venting his feeling, he did so in conversations with and letters to friends.

In one letter, Washington wrote,  “If you read the Aurora of this city…you cannot but have perceived with what malignant industry, and persevering falsehoods I am assailed, in order to weaken, if not destroy, the confidence of the Public.”  

After George Washington died, the Aurora commented,

“If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation has been debauched by Washington.

If ever a nation has suffered from the improper influence of a man, the American nation has suffered from the influence of Washington.

If ever a nation has been deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington.”

The unpresidential President: Are there Limits to Trump’s Character Flaws and his Alternative Truth?

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When the man holding the highest office in our land displays publicly a deficit in basic human values and in positive character traits, this should not sit well with all of us—regardless of partisan and ideological preferences. While Donald Trump exhibits such a deficit day-in and day-out—particular in his Twitter feeds, he highlighted yesterday his ethical bankruptcy in the most regrettable ways:

As he celebrated the adoption of the "John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act" during his visit at Fort Drum in upstate New York, he thanked a number of individuals but never mentioned the US Senator of Arizona. Instead, he called the new law “National Defense Authorization Act” dropping the Senator’s name included by Congress in honor of McCain who is fighting brain cancer. Unable to forget his political differences with the old war hero, Trump attacked him at his next stop—a fundraising event—again without naming McCain. But everybody knew what he meant when he referred to Obamacare and said, "I would've gotten rid of everything, but as you know, one of our wonderful senators had thumbs down at 2 o'clock in the morning.” 

I can’t think of more unpresidential behavior—apart from his on-bended-knees performance at the Helsinki “summit” and the press conference with Vladimir Putin.

That the 45. President is a pathological liar is well documented. Yesterday, for example, he tweeted that “the very unpopular Governor of Ohio (and failed presidential candidate) @JohnKasich hurt Troy Balderson’s recent win by tamping down enthusiasm for an otherwise great candidate…” The truth is that the last available opinion poll of June this year showed a 52% approval for Kasich compared to a 43% approval for Trump!

More importantly, there seem to be signs that the one-time reality TV star and shock jock may not get away with murder (as he has bragged) forever.  

A just published CNN poll revealed the following:

55 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Russia investigation vs. 34 percent who approve.

56 percent say Trump has interfered with the investigation, only 38 percent who say he has not.

70 percent say Trump should testify to Mueller, 25 percent who say he should not.

57 percent say Trump knew about contacts between his campaign operatives and Russians, only 36 percent who say he did not.

These results indicate that there are some cracks even in Trump’s base. Thus, there is now some hope that alternative truth and alternative facts cannot trump actual truth and actual facts forever.

Warning to Progressive Democrats: The Devil is in the Name

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When activists of the Netroots Nation met the other day in New Orleans  to discuss their strategies for the 2018 mid-term and the 2020 presidential elections, they heard from several potential presidential contenders of the Democratic Party—among them Senators Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren. But it was Cynthia Nixon, a challenger of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s reelection bid from the left, who addressed the controversial “s” word for socialist.

Nixon appealed to the progressive crowd not to shy away from the “democratic socialist” label or their agenda. “Republicans call us socialists no matter what,” she said.

The problem is, however, that the devil is in the name. And the “s” word for socialist does not sit well with Democrats and Independents either. While most Americans would be hard pressed to define the term, there is no love lost when it comes to socialism that tends to be equated with communism.

So, progressive leaders from Bernie Sanders to Cynthia Nixon and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and progressive activists everywhere drop the label “socialism” and replace it with a more benign and actually more fitting “s” word --social.  

Call yourself Social Democrats, call your agenda social, call your distinct partisan wing “Social Democrats of America” (different from your current name Democratic Socialists of America).

Your agenda is social—health care and education for all, living wages, environmental protection, human rights for asylum seekers and immigrants, and so much more of what you find in Western Europe’s comparable democracies. Most, if not all of what Progressives here fight for has long been adopted in EU countries—most of all a social safety net for everyone.

So, again, the devil is in the name. Keep the letter “s” but change the word to social!

The Damning Facts that Drive Trump’s Lies and the Hope for Truthtellers

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The facts are clear: Russian operatives controlled by Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 presidential elections with the intent to help Donald Trump to become president. The highest U.S. intelligence officials, all appointees of this president, and the U.S. Senate’s intelligence committee controlled by a GOP chair and majority, and Special Counsel Robert Mueller agree on this.

Today, Putin admitted that he wanted Trump to win while, not surprisingly, denying any wrongdoing.

Even as he stood next to Russia’s authoritarian leader President Trump attacked the facts, repeated the lies he tweets day-in and day-out, and attacked alleged foes at home, while his actual words and body language showered admiration on the autocrat he obviously fears.

In her essay “Truth and Politics” Hannah Arendt wrote that “truth and politics are on rather bad terms with each other.” Still, in spite of her claim that lies are in the tool box of most, if not all politicians, she was aware of the danger of lies trumping facts. Thus, she wrote, “The chances of factual truth surviving the onslaught of power are very slim indeed…”

That’s what Americans are faced with today: Will the truth or will lies prevail?

As the Mueller investigation moves ever closer to Trump’s campaign crew and perhaps his family, as the indictments multiply and the trial of Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort nears, the president fights the truth with lies. In her philosophical essay Arendt wrote, “Unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornness that nothing can move except plain lies.”

Will President Trump manage to replace the unwelcome truth with lies?

What happened today in Helsinki was even in Trump’s dreadful playbook a new low for any president and worse yet than his bullying of NATO, the EU, and the British Prime Minister last week. The horror show was not an assurance of the Trumpian “America First” promise but rather a declaration of love to Putin and “Russia First.”  

Yet, just like Trump declared the meetings in Brussels and the United Kingdom as historical success stories, he already praised himself for his success he achieved in Helsinki “for the American people.”

Will his advisers, will Republicans in Congress, will his appointees in the intelligence community continue to support this president as they did after each of his many outrageous missteps in the past?

Or will one truthteller or a group of truthtellers finally step forth and confront the liar-in-chief and the community of his enablers and supporters in the White House, in the administration, in the Congress, in states, cities, and counties with the facts, the truth?

Hannah Arendt wrote, “Where everybody lies about everything of importance, the truthteller…in the unlikely event that he survives, he has made a start toward changing the world.”

We can only hope and pray for such truthtellers and their survival. Otherwise, God help America as we love it.

Call Them Asylum Seekers or Refugees—Not Illegal Immigrants or Migrants

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As I read this morning’s New York Times at the breakfast table, an op-ed article by Brad S. Karp and Gary M. Wingens, chairmen of two of the country’s most prestigious law firms, was of particular interest.

First, the authors provide a concise survey of President Trump’s violations of international and constitutional law in his administration’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers at the country’s Southern borders. Second, the article reveals that the law firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Loewenstein Sandler “sent a team of lawyers to represent parents detained near the border in Texas” cooperating with non-profit organizations that try to protect the rights of affected adults and children.

What struck me though was the article’s headline “An Army of Lawyers for Migrants.” The authors do not use the term migrants that would indicate people moving from place to place mostly to find work but they rather write of “families seeking asylum” and refugee laws about the legal requirements for the treatment of asylum seekers.

When I saw the same article in the online opinion section of the Times I noticed that it had the fitting headline: “The Law Did Not Create This Crisis, but Lawyers Will Help End It.” I bet that the wording was changed for the print edition simply to shorten the headline in disregard of the fact that the term “migrants” has a different meaning than asylum seekers.

Like the Times other leading news organizations use the terminology that this president and his supporters prefer. Whether supportive or critical of the administration’s policies and actions reports typically refer to illegal immigration and illegal or undocumented immigrants or migrants.

Thus, in today’s Washington Post an editorial critical of the crisis caused by the Trump administration carries the headline “The right way to respond to the migrant influx” and calls those crossing the borders “illegal immigrants.”

President Trump has his reasons for calling asylum seekers, refugees from dangerous places, “illegal immigrants” that “infest” or “invade” our country bringing us allegedly criminals, gangs, and rapists and prevent us to “make America great again.” Like all demagogues he utilizes the power of words to widen us-against-them and good-versus-evil divides.   

Editors and journalists, too, ought to know that language matters.