reflectivepundit

Instead of Attacking the News Media Trump Should Thank Them

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When journalists cover Donald Trump’s rallies, they risk rhetorical attacks from the former president and by his supporters. As candidate and as president Trump called the news media the “enemy of the people.” This was his well laid plan to undermine public trust in the press.

Following his election victory in 2016, Trump had a telling encounter with the well- known TV reporter Lesley Stahl that she described later during a journalism award event,

“At one point, he started to attack the press. There were no cameras in there. I said, ‘You know, this is getting tired. Why are you doing it over and over? It’s boring and it’s time to end that. You know, you’ve  won … why do you keep hammering at this?’ And he said: ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.’”

Trump was successful in convincing his hard-core followers that the American press is evil and aligned with their domestic enemies—Democrats, Liberals, the “deep state” and so on. In such a climate, aggressive language can result in physical attacks.

Last Friday, a man stormed into the press section shortly after Trump had criticized the media for negative coverage in general and CNN for interviewing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz a day earlier. Before the intruder could harm reporters, police officers tasered and arrested the guy.  Reacting to the incident Trump asked the crowd, “Is there anywhere that’s more fun to be than a Trump rally?” There is reason to believe that Trump would have liked to see some roughed-up media workers last Friday.

In October 2018, after congressional GOP candidate Greg Gianforte of Montana body slammed and injured a reporter of The Guardian because he did not like to be questioned about his healthcare policy, President Trump praised Gianforte during a rally and mimicked a body slamming motion. “Greg is smart,” he said. “And by the way, never wrestle him. Never.  Any guy that can do a body slam is my kind of guy. My kind. I shouldn’t say that but this is nothing to be embarrassed by.”

After MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi covered a peaceful “Black Lives Matter” demonstration and was hit by a rubber bullet, Donald Trump recalled the incident at a campaign rally. “They [law enforcement officers] threw him aside like he was a little bag of popcorn,” the President said. “But I mean honestly, when you watch the crap that we’ve all had to take so long…when you see it, it’s actually a beautiful sight.”

Trump has no reason whatsoever to attack the press. He is the spreader of lies. Not the media. During this campaign he has once again dominated the news because he received more coverage than first Joe Biden and more recently Kamala Harris. Good examples were the trials in New York City courts, when the media offered him every day several opportunities to appear before cameras and microphones to attack plaintiffs, witnesses, prosecutors, judges, and Democrats for allegedly misusing the legal system again him, “an innocent man.”

In yesterday’s Washington Post, Columnist Colbert I. King summarized the soft reporting on Donald Trump best in the opening sentences of his column. He wrote,

“Are we in La La Land?

If I didn’t know better, I might conclude that the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, in which rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of the 2020 presidential election, was merely the act of exuberant “patriots” voicing their displeasure with Joe Biden’s victory — and that Donald Trump had nothing to do with it. What else to think, based on the media’s treatment of the twice-impeached former president and felon and his campaign to return to the White House?  Trump is being covered by the press as if Jan. 6 were old news.”

Very well said!

To Unmask the Trump-Vance Threat, Harris and Walz Must Call a Spade a Spade

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After he learned that Kamala Harris had chosen Tim Walz as running mate, Donald Trump claimed in a post on his social media platform Truth Social (what an ironic name!), “This is the most Radical Left duo in American history…” This was a mild version of his usual accusations that characterize his domestic political “enemies” as existential threat to America. On Veterans Day last November, for example, Trump said,

“The real threat is from the radical left. And it’s growing every day, every single day… They lie and steal and cheat on elections and will do anything possible…They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American dream…We pledge to you that we will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.”

He and his acolytes have revealed what they mean with rooting out the enemy within, namely, to destroy the “deep state” and the “administrative state” and replace them with MAGA loyalist who are being trained for their “patriotic” duty in the next Trump administration. Oh, yes, after the mainstream media finally covered the scary content of “Project 2025” at some length, Trump distanced himself from the far-right blue print. But the same Trump supporters who worked on that project are involved in a more detailed plan for the transition from the Biden to another Trump presidency.

And nobody should forget that the former president has threatened retribution against non-loyalists, that he has talked about prosecuting and executing high level members in his administration and in the congress who stood up to his illegal schemes.

Trump’s illegal and immoral actions and plans are so numerous that they seem normal and not worth mentioning.

The normalization of Trump’s extremism and its blessing by his running mate are great, perhaps the greatest problems for his opponents in this campaign. In their efforts to counter the dark picture of contemporary America that Trump and his side-kick JD Vance are painting, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are embracing hope and joy and laughter. That is a wonderful antidote to the script of the MAGA leaders that speaks to the fear and resentment that they stoke in their supporters.    

But the lion’s share of the Harris/Walz campaign energy must be reserved to unmask the existential threat that Trump and Vance post for America. That is not a laughing matter. Satire, jokes, and hints will not do.

Harris and Walz must call a spade a spade and bare the undemocratic views and plans of former president Trump and U.S. Senator Vance as un-American. They must explain the devastating consequences of the MAGA agenda and its implementation for the mass of Americans. And they must deny the far-right’s birthright to patriotism and the American flag.

When Vice President Harris spoke in Philadelphia about the “promise of America” coming true for her and her team-mate Walz and used the refrain “Only in America,” the crowd screamed repeatedly, U.S.A!

That was a good beginning for their 90-day campaign.

President Biden Cannot Win the November Election; He Must Step Down NOW

In this morning’s Washington Post the journalist Sally Quinn recalls the mental and physical decline of her husband Ben Bradlee, the well-known executive editor, who led the Washington Post during the Watergate scandal. Under the headline “My husband was slowing down. He needed protecting,” she describes in sadness what she calls up front “A story for Jill Biden,” the growing signs of dementia.

I hope that the First Lady and Joe Biden’s most influential advisors read this heartbreaking narrative of the progressive deterioration of Sally Quinn’s husband and how she protected him from doing publicly and privately what he was no longer able to do.

 If anyone had doubts about President Biden’s mental and physical decline, there was no denying after his catastrophic failure during the first debate with Donald Trump. While not as bad as the debate non-performance, his following public communication opportunities did not wipe out the terrible memories of the televised event.

Biden’s wife and sister along with his closest aides may have been in denial about the true state of the president’s decline for quite some time. But how can they ignore what unfolded in the last five or so weeks in full view of the American public? They all should arrange for a replay—or several--of the first presidential debate and meet reality. President Biden’s condition does not allow him to be a strong candidate and certainly not an effective president during a second term.

Surveys show that Donald Trump’s lead, especially in swing states, has increased. I do not see a path for Joe Biden to win the November election. And when the top dog loses, chances are that the rest of the ticket loses in greater numbers as well.

Today, a united front of Democrats, elected and appointed officials inside and outside of congress, must convince the president to abandon his candidacy. According to polls a strong majority of rank-and-file Democrats will agree with them. In short, with Biden as candidate, there may well be a landslide win for Trump and the GOP. With another candidate, younger, stronger, articulate, there will be at least a slim chance to prevent a second Trump term and majorities on both congressional chambers.

I like Joe Biden and thank him for his accomplishments during his presidency. If he stays in the race, I will vote for him as I would vote for a dog-catcher running against the former president. But my respect for President Biden will diminish as will his historic legacy.

Hate Speech and Violence are Contagious; Don’t Count on Sudden Civility

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After spending decades studying all aspects of political violence/terrorism, even the most horrific verbal and physical violence does not shock me. When I watched the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on live television, I was not surprised. Just as I was not surprised, when I saw the violent images of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. No, I could not have predicted what would happened to whom at what venue. But when political actors and groups of one persuasion label opponents regularly as illegitimate, enemies, and evil threats, there will be violent consequences sooner or later. There is some evidence that political violence is contagious in that it persuades other actors to carry out similar attacks.

President Joe Biden asked Americans to take down the temperature of divisive discourse in the hope that a less hostile climate would prevent further violence. Don’t count on it. Both sides believe that the stakes in the upcoming elections are the highest in modern times.

This morning, congressman Scott Perry (R-PA) was interviewed on the BBC News Hour on Public Radio. Perry, a close Trump ally, was one of the House members involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. Today, after some lip service to President Biden’s call for tuning  down the temperature of the political rhetoric, he put all the blame for some of Trump’s rhetoric on the other side blaming the government and the weaponized Department of Justice for persecuting Donald Trump since 2015. In response, Trump was just defending himself.

But while it seems difficult for many commentators, especially those who are liberal, to set the record straight after a failed assassination attempt, it needs to be done.

Yes, there have been aggressive rhetoric and hate speech on the far-left that targeted Trump, MAGA, and the GOP. But whereas the far-right and its rhetoric have  gone mainstream and were adopted by one of our two major parties, the far-left has not such a reach. There is no major far-left movement, party, and leader.

That is the difference.

The latest phase of the current political climate in our country began with the election of the first Black U.S. president in 2008. A few weeks after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the Tea Party was established—officially, as an anti-tax movement—even though Obama had not initiated legislation at that early time. Eventually, the libertarian—less government--wing of the movement was overshadowed by social/cultural/religious/white conservatives, many of whom were “birthers.”

Donald Trump made himself the self-appointed propagandist for the anti-Obama rumors that the sitting president was not born in the U.S. and therefore an illegitimate office holder and likely a Muslim, not a Christian. With that role on his resume, Trump won the support of many Tea Partiers, especially religious nationalists, and Birther conspiracy theorists, once he won the GOP presidential nomination in 2016. The extremism on Tea Party and Birther online discussion boards and social media became more pronounced in the MAGA movement and Trumpian GOP.

Their call to action was and remains, Attack, Attack, Attack.

Because President Biden mentioned the Jan 6 insurrection attempt among other violent attacks in his conciliatory speech, he was attacked by Republicans demanding to forget about Jan 6, not mentioning it any more. They defended their leader who has promised that he will pardon the “political prisoner” jailed for their Jan 6 crimes on day one of his second presidency.

It has been reported that Donald Trump rewrote his originally tough speech for the National Nominating Convention at Milwaukee this week and hast tuned it down. This was not exactly what he did yesterday in a post on Truth Social, when he wrote,

• “In this moment, it is more important than ever that we stand United, and show our True Character as Americans, remaining Strong and Determined, and not allowing Evil to Win."

Nothing changed. Just another wording of what he has called repeatedly “the last battle” that his side is fighting and must win against the existential Evil threat.

This reality does not bode well for less hate speech and less violence.

The Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling—A Warning that among the First Signposts of Vanishing Democracies are Courts Loyal to Authoritarian Populists

By Brigitte L. Nacos

The Supreme Court’s majority of six Justices—half of them appointed by Donald J. Trump—has done the bidding for the American Far-Right and its Dear Leader for years: From the repeal of the Roe v. Wade decision to today’s equally shocking decision that defies the U.S. Constitution and assures Trump that he will not be tried for directing the failed coup d’etat to overturn the legitimate election victory of Joe Biden.

This open Far-Right partisanship and loyalty to an out of control former and would-be president who does not cover his authoritarian/dictatorial ambitions poses an acute threat to American democracy whether Trump wins the November election or not.

And today’s opinion concerning former president Trump’s claim of immunity for his actions related to the January 6 insurgency is further proof that the current Supreme Court is not an independent institution of our government. Indeed, two of the justices in the majority, Thomas and Alito along with their respective wives have shown their support for far-right donors and for Trump’s efforts to overthrow our democracy in order to stay in power.

Every American should read this extraordinary majority opinion and the dissents, a strong warning signal that democracy dies in bright daylight.

While Chief Justice John Roberts claims in the majority opinion that “no man is above the law,” he and the rest of the far-right majority that distinguished between official and private  acts  deem conversations between the president and his vice-president and officials in the Department of Justice part of his official business—even though in Trump’s case the communication were part of efforts to overturning his lost election.

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in her dissent, “Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.”

She ends her opinion with the warning, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

Sotomayor is right. For the Supreme Court “the president is now a king above the law” as long as his criminal actions are deemed official ones by the highest Court.  

Scholars of democracy found that when populist authoritarian leaders come to power in liberal democracies, among their first efforts to gain full control is undermining the independence of courts by forcing sitting judges to retire and appointing loyalists.

If Donald Trump returns to the White House, this is a job he did in his first term. But there are plenty of other changes for which supporters of “illiberal democracy” are planning for the last several years.