reflectivepundit

Press Freedom or Selling Out to Authoritarian Bullies

By Brigitte L. Nacos

I just finished reading the historical novel “The Director” based on the actual life of film director G. W. Pabst and his family, in which the German author Daniel Kehlmann explores how a seemingly decent person makes a pact with the devil—in this case with Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels. When given a choice between persecution and concentration camp or unlimited resources for making motion pictures for the glory of the Third Reich, he answers with the “Heil Hitler” salute and full compliance.

While I read the gripping narrative, I could not help thinking of our predicament today here in the United States of America. To be sure, we are not living close to what happened in Hitler Germany. But unless we completely ignore the news, we see and hear day-in and day-out the ever more brazen attacks on democratic law, political convention, and empathy for the suffering of people here and abroad.

The democratic fabric weakens and the authoritarian markers strengthen.

Attacks and threats against institutions and individuals in the media, education, court, and corporate systems become more frequent and more harmful.

Taking the example of the news media, it seems that the owners are bending their knees when facing the wrath of a vengeful president, who has attacked the non-Fox-like media frequently as “the enemy of the people.”

Last Sunday, ABC News which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, suspended correspondent Terry Moran after he posted on social media that White House chief of staff Stephen Miller was “a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred” and called him “a world-class hater.” Moran also described Trump as “a world-class hater.” ABC News declared in a statement that it “stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others.”

It was not prudent in terms of securing his journalistic position for Moran to characterize Miller and Trump the way he did . But what he wrote is true. After all, these two powerful men were instrumental in the dismantling of America’s global USAID network and thus prevented the distributing of available food in storage houses in the Third World to starving children and adults. We all know whom and what they hate.  And when it comes to name calling, Miller and Trump have a long history of the most extreme kind of insulting rhetoric.  

But ABC News and the Walt Disney Company bent their knees quickly to prevent another defamation suit after they settled another one by Trump last year by paying $16 million. In that case, Trump resorted to legal action because TV-anchor George Stephanopoulos reported that Donald Trump had been "found liable for rape" in the E. Jean Carroll trial. The actual guilty verdict was for “sexual assault” but as the trial judge Lewis Kaplan said, the verdict did not mean that Carroll "failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that."

There is also a pending lawsuit by Donald Trump against CBS News claiming that the network's "deceitful" editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Vice President Kamala Harris during last years’ campaign misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged him.

Most legal experts agree that Trump has little chance winning this law suit.

Yet, Paramount and its controlling owner, Shari Redstone, do not want to stand up for press freedom but seek a law suit settlement with Trump at a time, when they seek approval by the FCC to sell the company.

Protesting the corporate bosses’ “heavy-handed” interference with “60 Minutes,” the long-time executive producer of the popular show, Bill Owens, resigned a few weeks ago.  

These cases (along with Amazon's Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, who exercises censorship of the newspaper)  demonstrate how the chilling effects of presidential hostility against the First Amendment’s guarantee of free expression/press and corporate self-interests can and do short-circuit press freedom.  

That brings me back to the historical novel “The Director” and the price of selling out to authoritarian bullies.  

What are the alternatives? Collective dissent? Courageous opposition leaders?

Those are the questions to ponder…

Flimsy Charges against Congresswoman (D); $5 Mill. Award for Family of Violent Jan. 6 Attacker

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver of New Jersey was charged with assaulting ICE and police officers outside an immigration detention facility in Newark on May 9^th. She and other members of congress had tried to make an oversight visit in the detention center.

I remember watching the news footage of scuffles outside the facility between protesters, Democratic lawmakers, and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, when a bunch of ICE agents and police tried to arrest the mayor and eventually managed handcuffing him. Congresswoman McIver was in the crowd that pulled and pushed in efforts to defend Baraka against the large number of ICE and police officers who did their share of pushing and pulling.

The Department of Homeland Security claimed that Democratic politicians “stormed the gate and broke into the detention center." The videotaped scenes did not show any of this.

Today, President Trump supported the arrest of Ms. McIver claiming that she was “out of control.” He also warned,  “The days of crab are over.”

Not surprisingly, congressional Democrats and Ms. McIver called this case “purely political.”

This first legal action against an opposition politicians surely looks that way.

Ironically, the drastic move came within hours of news reports that the U.S. government will pay close to $5 Mill. to the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot to death by a Secret Service agent as she used violence in her effort to entering the House of Representatives on January 6, 2021.  

Babbitt has been glorified by President Trump and his MAGA followers as an American patriot and hero.

Her family sued the U.S. government for Babbitt’s wrongful death seeking $30 Mill. A trial was set for July 2026. But now both sides agreed on a $5 Mill. settlement that will be paid by us--American taxpayers.

Here you have the assault charge against a Democratic lawmaker trying to exercise her oversight rights in an overcrowded immigration detention facility; there you get a rich award for a family member's participation in the violent assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Just another crazy day in Donald Trump’s America.

Mr. President, Your Shortened Political Honeymoon Is Over

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Typically, following their inauguration, U.S. presidents enjoy political honeymoons of about three months or 100 days. During that time, the enthusiasm of their supporters tends to be sky-high and the opposition lays low. Public opinion polls show sustained high approvals.

Donald Trump’s political honeymoon, however, was over before he reached today’s 100 Days Marker. While the president and his MAGA supporters celebrate what they consider huge presidential accomplishments, polls reveal weakening public support for Trump’s policies and governing style.

When Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2021, he had the approval of 52 percent of poll respondents. Soon thereafter, he lost that majority approval and then some. Last Sunday, a Washington Post/ABC News poll reported that merely 39 percent of Americans approved of Trump; other major polls reported 42 percent and 43 percent approval ratings.

A few days early, FOX News was the first news entity to publicize a significant drop in Trump’s approval to 44 percent. An angry president attacked FOX News and Rupert Murdoch for not removing their team of pollsters. It was another case of a powerful man trying to punish the messenger of bad news. Once other surveys confirmed the downturn in presidential approval ratings in general approvals and more significant declines for certain policies (economy, immigration, etc.), Trump called pollsters “negative criminals,” who should be investigated.

“Negative criminals” is a strange term to describe professional pollsters and by extension those news organizations that publish the results. Although White House aides continue to downplay poll numbers, Trump’s extreme rhetoric in reaction to his polling slump indicates how upset he is about the numbers.

There is reason for his concern. A case in point is the Canadian populace’s response to President Trump’s repeated threats to turn the neighboring country into the 51^st U.S. state. A huge public opinion lead of the Conservative Party’s electoral prospects vanished as the temporary Liberal Party’s Prime Minister Mark Carney became the most forceful anti-Trump voice. Yesterday, the Conservative Party’s Pierre Poilievre, who mimicked Trump's extremism, did not merely lose the P.M. race but also his legislative seat in a rural district which he had represented for 21 years.

One wonders how Mr. Trump might respond to potential further decline of public support and similar developments in the Congress. Thomas Edsall addresses this question in an op-ed article of today’s New York Times titled “How Does a Stymied Autocrat Deal With Defeat?” The political scientists he consulted voiced different views, especially, on possible violent reactions of an autocratic president blocked by dissent.

I ponder whether the violent January 6 invaders of the U.S. Capitol that President Trump pardoned might be the type of “positive criminals” ready to giving an encore performance sometime in the future.

A Follow-Up to “When Fear and Courage Matter”

By Brigitte L. Nacos

When faced with the raw power and cruelty of authoritarian rule, people in democracies react differently. Many join the movement which was instrumental in bringing the strongman to power. Some, such as the leaders of corporations or private organizations go along because they expect to gain in form of influence and/or financial gains.

Still others, and often the largest part of the populace, escape fully into their normalcy of daily family and community life ignoring the political realities. That is quite easy to do. After all, adults continue to go to work; children continue to go to school; friends continue to go bowling or play cards together; couples still get married, and families still celebrate birthdays.

And then there are well-known public and private persons, who are terrified by the existential threats against constitutional and statutory law (especially civil liberties), and the deliberate destruction and demeaning of public and private institutions. But they also worry that any opposition to the misdeeds of the ruler will result in retribution.

According to news reports, Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a Republican, admitted the other day that she is “worried” about speaking out against certain Trump administration policies. “We are all afraid,” she said. “I am oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice because retaliation is real.”

But whereas fear of harsh political retaliation can and does silence many, the same anxieties do not prevent others to overcome their trepidation. They, best in concert with similar-minded friends, colleagues, acquaintances, organize some form of dissent. Speaking truth to power. Organizing, coordinating, or simply join peaceful public protest demonstrations. That is what drove Dr. Martin King and all the known and un-known heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. You can be sure that the men and women who marched in the South had acute fears of the deadly force of the segregationist police and paramilitaries. But they sang and marched and died. And eventually prevailed.

As so many gains by movements in the 20^th century’s second half, such as the already weakened civil rights, abortion rights, affirmative action, environmental protection (along with due process and academic freedom and more) are under attack by the Trump-Musk administration’s implementation of the dictatorial “Project 25,” the time is ripe for massive public dissent.

There are some hopeful signs: Harvard University’s rejection of an unprecedented take-over by Trumpian hardliners. The huge crowds flocking to Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Fighting Oligarchy” events.

In his New York Times column today, David Brooks, a conservative, writes,

• It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. It’s time for Americans in universities, law, business, nonprofits and the scientific community, and civil servants and beyond to form one coordinated mass movement. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.

I agree with Brooks that such a movement must not be partisan. It must combine all those who fear that our 250-year-old democracy must be defended against those brandishing a chainsaw of destruction.

When Fear and Courage Matter

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In the spring of 2016, when Donald Trump led the field of Republican presidential contenders, he told the journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, “Real Power is—I don’t even want to use the word—fear.

Lately, I have thought of that quote a lot.

When I saw the horrific images of masked and hooded guys grabbing a Tuft University foreign student, handcuffing and forcing her into an unmarked car. Or when the news reports that the Department of Justice and the President of the United States ignore District Court and Supreme Court rulings to bring back to the U.S. a Latino man who was deported by the Department of Homeland Security to a high security prison in El Salvador because of an “administrative mistake.”  In both cases and a rapidly increasing number of other instances, the constitutional due process rights of people were violated. Their “crime” in the eyes of Trump’s MAGA regime are protests in the form of written or spoken words—both guaranteed rights in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Stoking fear is the point. What else could we make of the Secretary of Homeland Security standing in front of the El Salvador prison warning undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. voluntarily or otherwise end up in a hell hole like this.

Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk also use the fear factor to decimate the federal civil service, disable literally all departments of the executive branch, and threaten members of the GOP majority in both congressional chambers with primary challenges to kill even the slightest opposition to presidential directions.  

So, Trump uses power ruthlessly to cause fear and then exploits fear to gain what he calls “real power.” One could also call it dictatorial power.

Within the first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency, there have been many strongman orders and many who accepted them. In certain cases, such as in Germany under Hitler, police and paramilitary squads used deadly violence to silence any dissent. But that is not the case here. Not now. Thus, there are still choices to be made.

I think of the big law firms that represented prominent Democrats as clients and therefore were threatened by an executive order issued by Trump which would have banned attorneys of these legal giants from entering federal buildings, including court houses—a certain road to bankruptcy. Several settled with Trump promising each $100 Mill. in pro bono work for uncontroversial causes both sides agreed on. Columbia University, threatened with losing some $400 million in federal research grants, agreed to several administration demands that curtailed academic freedom at the private university. But there was no final settlement.

However, when Harvard University was threatened by the Trump administration with far more draconian oversight of all important aspects of academic life, the oldest American university refused to accept and thereby risked $2 billion in federal grants and contracts. As Harvard President Alan Garber wrote, “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue. Doing otherwise would threaten the values of any private university “devoted to the pursuit, production and dissemination of knowledge.”

Harvard’s example and that of several law firms who went to court challenging Trump’s executive order and winning their first legal rounds are profiles in courage compared to the otherwise widely complicit behavior of all kinds of influential leaders in the corporate world and elsewhere.  

But Harvard’s resistance might encourage others. Columbia University’s acting President Claire Shipman, wrote in a campus email that she “read with great interest the message from Harvard refusing the federal government’s demands.” And she promised, “We would reject any agreement in which the government dictates what we teach, research, or who we hire. And yes, to put minds at ease, though we seek to continue constructive dialog with the government, we would reject any agreement that would require us to relinquish our independence and autonomy as an educational institution.”

For strong and influential institutions and leaders outside of government there are two very different ways to deal with strongmen dictates: one driven by fear and self-interest; the other by courage and risk-taking.