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.”

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.

When Democracy Dies in Bright Daylight

By Brigitte L. Nacos

After Donald Trump won the presidency, the Washington Post began to print the warning “Democracy Dies in Darkness” underneath its masthead to highlight the need for journalism that speaks truth to power. After contributing to Mr. Trump’s stunning presidential nomination and election victory the Post and a number of other news organizations reclaimed belatedly their role as watchdog of government. Now, however, the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is no longer the right one to describe what we are witnessing on a daily basis.

Last century, the most authoritarian, dictatorial, and fascist leaders utilized the legitimate political process to win the most powerful office in the state. Once in the saddle they carried out immediately what the Nazis called Gleichschaltung—putting every public and private sector under the complete control of the leader, his hand-picked clique, his party. Think of Mussolini and Hitler.

Today’s autocrats, today’s fascist leaders consolidate state power not immediately like their predecessors but step by step over time. A good example is Hungary’s President Victor Orban who has openly proclaimed the end of liberal democracy and the advent of the “illiberal state” or illiberal democracy in his country modeled after Putin’s Russia and Erdogan’s Turkey. So far, there has been a purge of the civil service, curbs on the judiciary’s independence, intimidation of the press, establishment of election rules tilted in favor of parties that support him, and the vilification of foreigners.

Sounds familiar? Indeed! The U.S. president, too, has attacked Washington’s civil servants, declared war against the law enforcement apparatus and its leaders, fired highly placed officials in the Department of Justice and FBI,  called for their removal of more people across departments, presides over an administration with dangerous gaps in knowledgeable personnel. Just think of the dismantling of the Department of States’ Foreign Service professionals. And last but not least, think of President Trump’s attacks on the legitimacy and credibility of the news media.

Just like the current autocrats in Hungary and Poland and elsewhere, the narcissist in the White House speaks openly and frequently about his disregard for democratic rules of the game.

Of the people in all branches of government and all its institutions, Mr. Trump expects and demands loyalty to him alone—not to the constitution, not the law.  

Those are traits of dictatorial, fascist rulers.

President Trump and the Violence of the Word

By Brigitte L. Nacos

This weekend, as I listened and read assessments of Donald Trump’s first year as U.S. president, Ross Douthat’s column  in today’s New York Times caught my particular attention. His argument is, as the headline states, “so far more farce than tragedy.”

I agree that our democratic system has not been replaced (yet) by authoritarian Trumpism but disagree with the columnist’s core arguments, namely,

• that there is “a vast gulf between things Trump says he wants—which are indeed often authoritarian—and the things that actually happen in the essential characteristics of his presidency’s first year.”
• that “Trump is a dictator on Twitter, a Dear Leader in his own mind, but in the real world there is no Trumpocracy because Trump cannot even rule himself.”

These citations ignore the power of the written or spoken word. Language matters. Hate speech can and does inflict harm on the targets of hateful words—especially when these are communicated by the U.S. president  in the Oval Office, at staged cheering events amidst his most admiring fans, and, of course, on Twitter.

Whether expressed in vulgar or merely “tough” language, when the president and his minions attack and stereotype minorities, they injure their targets. Here are just a few examples from today’s mock presidential etiquette guide in the Times:

• Retweet inflammatory and fake anti-Muslim videos from an ultranationalist British group;
• Ask in a meeting with lawmakers on immigration policy, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?,” referring to Africa, and “Why do we want people from Haiti here? Take them out.”
• Warn American citizens in Puerto Rico, only weeks after a catastrophic hurricane, that the federal government can’t help them out “forever” even as you tell victims of a hurricane in Texas, “We are with you today, we are with you tomorrow, and we will be with you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to restore, recover, and REBUILD!”
• Tell Americans that a march of torch-carrying white supremacists and neo-Nazis includes “some very fine people” — and when one of those marchers murders a peaceful counterprotester, condemn violence on “both sides”

There is so much more to be added to this list of words likely to injure targeted minorities, especially Mexicans and other Latinos, among those DACA recipients. Then there are the hundreds of thousands of Salvadorians and Haitians threatened to lose their TPS status and be forced to leave this country after staying here legally for most of their lives.  And, of course, Muslims. And people of color, anyone not white. They all have been rhetorically put down by Mr. Trump. And often words are followed by deeds that cause human suffering. 

This president, no doubt, has engaged in hate speech before and during his campaign. And this did not stop once he became president.  

Unfortunately, the old children’s rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” is wrong. Words do  hurt. Hate speech directed at particular ethnic, racial, religious, or other minorities or members thereof are injurious. 

The sociologist Mary Jackman has noted that hateful spoken and written words can lead to psychological, social or material injuries. Legal scholar Mari Matsuda includes physical harm as consequence of “violence of the word” and notes that the targets of such speech “experienced physiological symptoms and emotional distress ranging from fear in the gut, rapid pulse rate and difficulty in breathing, nightmares, post-traumatic stress disorder, hypertension, psychosis, and suicide.”

Perhaps, the president does not know or does not care or both.

Why the Liar King in the White House Owes Thanks to the News Media

By Brigitte L. Nacos

None of his predecessors has peddled lies (and actually repeated them when proven false) as frequently as President Donald Trump. Part of the steady flow of lies (according to one count 103 in his first 10 months in office versus 18 during President Obama’s full 8 years in the White House) are first circulated via his Twitter account.

Some originate in the president’s head, others are borrowed from his propagandists at FOX NEWS and other Trump media, and still others are simply retweets of typically outrageous social media sound bites and video clips.  

While Trump has more than 45 million followers, the mainstream media that he attacks day-in and day-out spreads and magnifies his tweet production.

Indeed, you do not have to read the president’s actual tweets in order to know the content of all or most of them—simply following one or more mainstream news sites will do.

As much as propaganda is the oxygen of populists, especially of the authoritarian variety, tweets provide the oxygen for President Trump. Not so much by being posted at his Twitter account but far more by being reported, analyzed, critiqued and rehashed by literally all major and not so major news organizations.

Whenever the president tweets, the news media report and thereby magnify what Mr. Trump spits out.  

Imagine for a moment that the still free press would stop to report his tweets. To be sure, there would loyal followers accessing Trump’s account but certainly not all that signed up during the last several years.

Otherwise, Trump’s tweets would be like the tree in the forest that falls without the press being there. It would be as if it did not happen.

A non-event!   

I know that this kind of media self-censorship will not happen.

Thus, the Liar King owes thanks to the news media for providing a mighty bullhorn for his tweeted propaganda.

The News about Sexual Assault and the Elephant in the Room: President Trump

By Brigitte L. Nacos

For weeks now the shocking news of sexual assault and misconduct by prominent males has been the leading story in news and social media. Women, so the narrative has it, finally dare to speak out publicly and going in droves on record with sickening revelations of unwanted sexual encounters of varying degrees.

As the defiant wife of Roy Moore, Alabama’s GOP candidate for a U.S. Senate seat, noted the other day, nobody talks about Russia anymore, thanks to the fake news of her husband’s alleged sexual misbehavior with very young girls—one merely 14-year old.

She was right. And for that nobody can be more thankful than Donald Trump.

To begin with, Special Prosecutor Mueller’s investigation is closing in on the Trump campaign’s and White House’s inner circles, including family members. It must be a relief to see “the Russia thing” on the backburner of media, elite, and public agenda.

The daily reports about women’s accusations against more prominent men also overshadow by far news about the full content and most unjust consequences of the planned congressional tax reform. It is therefore not surprising that public opinion changed of late from overwhelming rejection to a plurality in favor of tax legislation that is designed to benefit the most wealthy individuals and corporation at the expense of middle and lower classes.

And just in time for Thanksgiving, President Trump returned Mr. Moore’s favor by endorsing him and not precluding his campaigning for the accused. Asked about Moore, Trump told reporters,

“He says it didn’t happen. You have to listen to him, also.”

“I do have to say, 40 years is a long time. He’s run eight races, and this has never come up. So, 40 years is a long time.”

I wonder why anyone can be surprised that Trump defends Moore. After all, Moore is now in the same boat as Trump was during last year’s campaign, when more than a dozen women accused him of the sexual misbehavior. Today, a report in the Washington Post describes the shocking revelations of 13 of these women. Trump threatened to sue them but never did.   

Like Trump then, Moore now denies any wrong-doing and attacks the victims accusing them of lying, of being tools of political opponents.  

In spite of all the talk about female victims of sexual harassment and attack finally being heard and finally being believed, the elephant in the room is the occupant of the Oval Office. He certainly does not believe women accusing him and Moore or probably any other Republican.

“The Russian Thing” and the Threat of War

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Beleaguered President Donald Trump wants nothing more than make “the Russian thing” go way.

He spent political capital by firing Acting Attorney General Sally Yates und FBI Director James Comey for not buckling under his pressure tactics; he lost moral authority by bullying Attorney General Jeff Sessions and others for the same reasons.

Trump and his supporting cast do not merely spin reality, they outright lie.

And yet “the Russian thing” becomes more threatening by the day--for President Trump and for members of his family and his supporting cast.

Even Mr. Trump must now fear the truth in the German proverb: Lies have short legs…

Judging from some Republicans’ warnings, Trump would be ill advised to follow his urge to fire AG Sessions to clear the way for removing Special Prosecutor and former FBI Director Robert Mueller.

That’s why there is reason to worry about Trump’s next possible steps to remove “the Russian thing” from media and public attention.

One sure way to put “the Russian thing” on the back burner would be a major foreign policy crisis—especially one involving military conflict. As we know all too well, in such crises both newsrooms and the public tend to rally around the flag and around the president.

That’s why Senator Lindsey Graham’s revelation that Mr. Trump contemplates military actions against North Korea is so worrisome. According to Newsweek, Graham said, "There will be a war with North Korea over their missile program if they continue to try to hit America with an ICBM. [Trump] has told me that. I believe him, and if I were China, I would believe him too."

Of course, North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities are major threats to many countries’ national security—including ours. Trump told Graham, “If thousands die, they’re going to die over there. They’re not going to die here.”

First, then, this president makes clear that he does not care about foreign victims of war and second, he seems unaware that tens of thousands of U.S. troops are deployed near the border between the two Koreas.

With the diplomatic capabilities of the Department of State dangerously curtailed, key positions in the department and in missions overseas not filled, the prospects for skillful diplomacy are slim. Add to that an inexperienced Secretary of State who seems to be dodged by Trump’s son-in-law and others in the White House.

Limiting One’s News Consumption Can be Liberating

By Brigitte L. Nacos

Taking off from following the unreal reality show presented by President Donald Trump day-in and day-out  is a very healthy exercise.

I know first-hand. And I recommend it.

Instead of following every turn and twist in the never ending flow of far from normal Trump tweets, White House infighting and chaos, and the do-nothing congress, I decided a few weeks ago to limit my news consumption to shorter time periods early and late in the day.

To be sure, even limited exposure to news kept me abreast of the White House circus and its effects at home and abroad.

But relief from being troubled all day long about the latest news dispatches is exhilarating, relaxing, and productive.

Whether hitting a golf ball and swimming or researching and writing—everything is so much more pleasurable and focused.

Since politics, media, public opinion are among my primary research and teaching interests this limited news experience will be short lived.

With August in sight, I will resume news checks during the day—but not as regular as before my partial time off.

And I will post again.

As the badge on the side bar site shows, reflectivepundit.com was mentioned among the Top 100 Political Science Blogs

most of which are supported by organizations, publishers, etc. and not by a singly individual as this site is. 

London’s Latest Terrorist Attack: Another Example of Mass-Mediated Contagion of Political Violence

By Brigitte L. Nacos

As shocking as it is, nobody should be surprised about last night’s horrific terrorist attack in London starting with a van ploughing into pedestrians on iconic London Bridge and continuing with the killing and injuring of people by three jihadists armed with deadly knives. The incident took the lives of seven persons and injured 48. Since it was first reported, it has remained breaking news all-the-time.

As I see it, this terrorist attack is another in the latest string of over-covered terrorist incidents that may have inspired extremists to utilize a tactic for the sake of global publicity.

The series of similar attacks began on July 14, 2016: Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel (31) drives a 20-ton truck into a huge crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, France, killing 84 and injuring several hundred persons. The perpetrator is shot; ISIS claims responsibility. The shocking incident receives prominent and extensive global news coverage. In the following eight months there are at least four other lethal vehicular attacks in the West— at a Christmas market in the center of Berlin, in Jerusalem, on London’s Westminster Bridge, and at a popular department store in Stockholm. Additionally, solo-attackers in cars are either killed or arrested by police on the campus of Ohio State University in the U.S. and near a shopping center in Antwerp, Belgium, before they can kill.

This surge in vehicular strikes was merely the latest example of terrorists imitating particularly shocking and heavily covered modes of attack. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, for example, Palestinian terrorist groups staged a number of spectacular hijackings of commercial airliners. Eventually, other groups, among them the German Red Army Faction and the Lebanese Hezbollah, carried out their own hijacking shockers.

While the take-over of planes remained fairly popular among terrorists, the highly publicized take-over of embassies proved contagious as well. According to a study by the Rand Corporation, there were 43 successful embassy take-overs and five failed attempts between 1971 and 1980 in 26 countries. “Like many other tactics of terrorism, hostage-taking [in embassies] appears to be contagious,” Brian Jenkins concluded. “The incidents do not fall randomly throughout the decade, but occur in clusters.” The idea here is that one event inspires another one. Presumably, terrorists knew of these takeovers from media reports since these incidents took place in a host of different countries on different continents. By late 1979, when the Iran Hostage Crisis began, the “students” who took over the U.S. embassy in Teheran and the Iranian leaders who backed them must have known  about the prominent news coverage such incidents received. After all, of the embassy takeovers during the 1970s, more than half occurred in the last two years of the decade.  

The massive coverage of ISIS atrocities, too, was not lost on ISIS devotees in various parts of the world. Shortly after the gruesome decapitation of James Foley in 2014, 30-year old Alton Nolen attacked former colleagues at a food plant in Moore, Oklahoma, beheading Colleen Hufford and seriously wounding a second woman. Nolen was a convert to Islam who had tried to convert his colleagues—without success. A month later, when Zale Thompson, 32, and another convert to Islam attacked a group of New York police officers with a hatchet, the conclusion was that he had planned to behead his targets. Similar incidents took place in Europe, Australia, and elsewhere. There is little doubt that those successful and failed modes of attack were examples of copy-cat violence.

“Wag the Dog” and Clinton and Trump’s Missile Strikes

By Brigitte L. Nacos

In 1998, two weeks after terrorists drove car bombs into U.S. embassy compounds in Kenya and Tanzania causing hundreds of deaths, the U.S. military targeted Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and what was described as a “chemical weapons related facility” in Sudan with 79 Tomahawk missiles. The strikes were launched three days after President Clinton had publicly admitted an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Opinion leaders, especially the president’s adversaries in Congress, claimed that Clinton had ordered what the White House labeled counterterrorist strikes in order to draw attention away from his sex scandal. Not only were the critics amply covered by the news media, reporters, too, expressed skepticism about the president’s motives.

 Characteristic for the media’s stance was an exchange during a press conference at the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense William Cohen was asked by one reporter whether he was familiar with the Wag the Dog movie in which an American president cooks up an imaginary war for the purpose of deflecting interest away from his sexual encounter with a teenage girl. “Some Americans are going to say this [the missile strikes] bears a striking resemblance to Wag the Dog,” one reporter said. “How do you respond?” Cohen replied that “the only motivation driving this action today was our absolute obligation to protect the American people from terrorist activities.”

Strangely, after President Trump ordered last Thursday a cruise missile attack on a Syrian airfield controlled by President Assad’s military in response to a chemical attack that killed at least 80 people, neither Washington’s political elite nor media pundits and correspondents questioned Trump’s motive—even though he and his foreign policy advisers changed their posture vis-à-vis Syria’s autocratic ruler within days from no- interference-in-Syria’s-domestic-politics to a categorical no-peace-with-Assad at a time of an all-time low presidential approval rating for Trump.  

It is indeed astounding how 59 inconsequential missile strikes led immediately to a robust pro-president rally among the usual TV talking heads among Trump supporters and skeptics applauding the “decisive” presidential move and declaring that through this decision Donald Trump had truly become the President!