TRUMP AND THE PRESS: THERE HE GOES AGAIN

Donald Trump began fighting with the news media as a 2016 candidate. At rallies, he leveled the charge “fake news” at

mainstream media organizations and reporters who challenged his actions or statements. That has continued since he took office. Now, in addition to attacking the press generally, Trump seems to have saved his most vitriolic and disturbing attacks for women reporters and minority women reporters.

Trump’s behavior threatens American democracy, demeans his office, and brings

closer the fears of encroaching fascism former State Secretary Madeleine Albright cautioned us about in her 2018 book Fascism: A Warning. The president’s treatment of the press underscores the need for removing him from office five months from now. 

Special Disdain for Women

Though Trump does berate male reporters from time to time, recently he’s saved special invective for female journalists.

During news conferences and coronavirus task force briefings, Trump has said very unpleasant things to women attending and working at those meetings.  They include:

·    Calling one female CBS correspondent “fake” and “disgraceful.”

·    Telling CNN’s Abby Phillips, “You ask a lot of stupid questions.”

·    Saying to another female CNN reporter that, “You’ve had enough” when the woman tried asking a question.

·    Once telling ABC’s Cecilia Vega, “I know you’re not thinking. You never do.”

Such insults produced former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson’s description of

Trump as a “misogynistic jerk.” She added that he treats women reporters differently than men and in a way that’s “horrible.”

Saving Real Vitriol for Minority Women

Soon after becoming president, Trump began insulting female reporters of color. He had

an early run-in with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, asking her if she could arrange a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. She wrote a book, Under Fire: Reporting from the Front Lines of the Trump White House, in which she accused him of discriminating against minority journalists.

Trump later started a feud with Yamiche Alcindor, a black woman who once worked as

a reporter for The New York Times but now appears on the PBS News Hour and serves as an MSNBC contributor. Trump has asked her to be “nice” and not “threatening.” On several occasions he wouldn’t answer questions from her that seemed no more hostile than questions white male reporters ask.

Trump berating reporter Yamiche Alcindor 

Most recently, Trump seemingly profiled a CBS reporter of Asian heritage, Weijia Jiang, telling her she should “ask China” a question about his early downplaying of the corona-

virus. She called him on that, asking why he directed such a statement at her. He later said she should “keep her voice down.”

The Ryan, Alcindor, and Jiang incidents suggest Trump believes he can bully minority

women reporters at will. Trump’s attacks on women journalists, including minority women, no doubt helped encourage a recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists that described Trump’s war on the press as “dangerously under[mining] truth and consensus in a deeply divided country.”

Trump goes after reporters of all stripes who don’t work for Fox News. He calls them names, insults their intelligence, and denigrates the  organizations for which they

work. Recently, for example, he took on The Washington Post White House Bureau Chief Phillip Rucker, co-author of A Very Stable Genius, a book highly critical of Trump’s actions as president.

Secretary Albright wrote “The advantage of a free press is diminished when anyone can claim to be an objective journalist, then disseminate narratives conjured out of thin air to make others believe rubbish.” (p. 114).  We would add that destroying the credibility of the free press represents the first step in that process. Clearly, Trump wishes to bestow credibility on the part of the press that supports his conduct and attack the part that dares criticize him. 

Time for Another Warning

Earlier this year, in a post titled From Russia With Love 2.0: American Democracy, Autocracy, Plutocracy, or Fascism? we cited Secretary Albright’s warnings about the fascist threat in light of new reports concerning Russian plans for interfering in this year’s presidential election. Trump’s

attacks on the press, particularly by targeting women and minority journalists, require that we turn to Secretary Albright once more. On the press issue, she asked, “If the president of the United States says the press always lies, how can Vladimir Putin be faulted for making the same claim?” (p.5).  Later, she noted how “contagious” anti-press behavior becomes. Not long after Trump excluded prominent reporters from his news conferences, other governments began taking actions against reporters who wrote stories those governments didn’t like and called them “fake news.” (pp. 212-13)

We can’t stress enough how strongly we believe Trump’s attacks on the press threaten American democracy as much or more than other actions he’s taken. The fact he picks on and insults women, especially women of color, just makes it worse. We can’t let our outrage wane though his persistent, destructive behavior continues unabated. A “new “normal” is too dangerous.

We’re reminded of the wisdom in Thomas Jefferson’s 1787 observation that, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

We’ve often pointed out the many reasons the American people must remove Trump and preserve the democracy we’ve painstakingly built over almost 250 years. Trump’s press interaction, especially with women reporters, ranks right at the top.       

IMPEACHMENT: IT’S THE REAL DEAL NOW

Impeaching President Donald J. Trump now seems inevitable.  On a party-line vote, the House of Representatives last week endorsed a resolution opening a formal impeachment inquiry. The vote never would have

been taken if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasn't confident she has the votes for impeachment. Soon public hearings will begin, followed by approval of at least one article of impeachment in the judiciary committee. If the full House supports

at least one article, action would shift to the Senate for a trial. There, conviction and removal from office require a two-thirds vote, admittedly an unlikely prospect now.   

Mounting evidence Trump abused his office by withholding aid from a beleaguered ally while demanding help from that foreign government in digging up dirt on a political opponent has persuaded about half the country Congress should remove him. Though

Trump’s sins as described in the report of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller didn’t produce widespread support for impeachment, shake-down of a foreign leader for personal domestic political advantage appears to have broken through.

The story isn’t complicated. A White House  summary of a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president

told most people all they needed to know. When House investigators began taking testimony from people involved in U.S. – Ukrainian relations the doubts about Trump’s constitutionally prohibited behavior fell away.  A host of credible witnesses, like Ukraine Ambassador William Taylor and a decorated National Security Council official, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, have given the Ukraine scandal gravitas and staying power with the public. House leaders, like intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff, indicate Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and perhaps even former National Security Advisor John Bolton may testify in the public hearing phase. History suggests increasing public support for impeachment would likely result from public hearings.

Our Say

We return to impeachment now because it’s real. In four previous posts we looked at it under abstract circumstances. This isn’t hypothetical anymore. This will happen.

We began writing about impeaching Trump in March 2017, just two months into his presidency. Early signs of corruption  produced Woodson’s prediction that impeachment proceedings against the President would begin “in the next year.”  It took a little longer, but even then the road pointed in the direction we’re now headed.

                   

Three months later, in June 2017, Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey induced from us a piece on the history of the Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton impeachment proceedings. We speculated about what might happen politically if Trump were impeached and removed. As things move forward in 2019, we realize we’ll have to revisit the political calculus.  It’s different now that we’re on the cusp of an election, but no less important in developing an understanding of what all this means for American politics.

In July 2018, we briefly revisited impeachment in the wake of Trump’s shameful performance in Helsinki alongside Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. With former State Secretary Madeleine Albright’s

book Fascism as a backdrop and organizing principle, we asked if impeachment “could reign in Trump’s behavior,” even if the Senate didn’t remove him from office.

Finally, in April 2019, evidence of Trump’s scandalous behavior became clearer and clearer. We learned of so many sins, we asked, “Impeachment Anyone?” We addressed the issue in terms of political reality versus the country’s need for a moral response, in the process revealing our own varied views on the issue.

Ukraine Changes the Game

Throughout the now nearly three years of the Trump presidency, as the specter of impeachment lurked beneath the surface and the bad acts piled up, there has always been the idea of relying on the 2020 election as the best way of ridding the nation of Trump disease. Wait, counseled people like Rob, who for most of that time, thought the political price of impeaching Trump wasn’t worth it. We could tough it out until the election in the belief limiting Trump to one term wouldn’t permanently damage the country. Trump’s behavior in connection with Ukraine calls the morality of that view into serious question.

Woodson and Henry now offer compelling

observations about why leaving it to the election isn’t a good idea. Woodson notes the possibility of tampering with the 2020 election. Mueller told Congress he was sure the Russians were, as he spoke, readying their next attack. Trump, by saying he’d welcome dirt on his opponent from foreign sources, invited just such interference. It happened in 2016. It could happen again.   

Henry, a former federal magistrate judge who says perhaps the best part of his job was swearing in new citizens, reminds us morality commands we not betray the brave citizens like Ambassador Taylor, Lt. Col. Vindman, and the original

whistleblower who stepped forward and told what they knew, sometimes at great personal cost. Trump and his allies vilified these men and women for doing nothing more than honoring their duty under the constitution.

 

All three of us learned in law school the venerable principle that the law is entitled to every person’s evidence. People like

Ambassador Taylor and Lt. Col. Vindman followed that principle with their closed-door testimony and probably will again when the hearings go public. In the absence of impeaching Trump, we will have done those individuals and the principle they followed a great disservice. We cannot afford the price of doing that.   

DO WE OR DO WE NOT WANT DEMOCRACY?

THIS DEAD HORSE QUESTION REQUIRES MORE BEATING

“What makes a movement Fascist is not ideology but the willingness to do whatever is necessary – including the use of force and trampling on the rights of others – to achieve victory and command obedience.”  -- Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State, Fascism: A Warning (2018) p. 229.

A friend who is a Trump supporter inspired this blog. He

defends the President’s right to use money, not appropriated, for building a wall on the southern border of the United States. This friend believes, even though the constitution makes Congress the branch of government that appropriates money, the

President can ignore that and take money from other appropriations for any purpose the President declares a “national emergency.” He asserts the President’s responsibility to “provide for the common defense” permits such action.

Constitutional Issues

Our friend’s “provide for the common defense” claim presents the first problem. That phrase comes from the constitution’s preamble and serves as a rationale for the constitution itself. Article II, the part of the constitution establishing an executive branch and defining its duties, does not assign the executive a “common defense” duty. Indeed, the “common defense” obligation applies to all branches of the American government.  

We live in a democracy with three co-equal branches of

government – legislative, executive, and judicial.  The constitution gives the legislative branch exclusive appropriation power. Though Congress has granted the executive authority to declare “national emergencies,” it has never given up the power of the purse.

Considerable debate, in fact, exists about the constitutionality of the statute purporting to give presidents

emergency authority. To achieve the result our friend desires, we believe this country would have to choose a more autocratic form of government. Judging by his views, and those of many Trump supporters, one might conclude they are ready to do just that. We wonder, however, if other things are at work.

Do Americans really favor moving to an autocratic form of government? We suspect not. Instead, some actually only want the result Trump has promised, i.e. making America great again by cordoning off the United States from the entry of brown people from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Trump never speaks so harshly about the entry of immigrants with white skin. That alone attracts some of his supporters. Some merely back his other policies, including his position on abortion, putting right-leaning judges on the federal courts, and tax policies that favor the wealthy.       

The Reality of Democracy

Democracy remains the most desirable form of government, but no one should underestimate what it requires. As the appearance before the House Oversight Committee of former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen demonstrated, democracy involves the people’s representatives holding even the highest officials accountable for their misdeeds. Democrats, Republicans, and Independents must work on this together or democracy will perish. The people have a right to this accountability and no president gets a free pass.

We fear some Trump supporters, who would grant him so much executive authority, miss this point in the name of achieving policy ends. Some Trump supporters behave as if they do not appreciate the damage he has done to the fabric of our democratic form of government. When he accused a federal judge of Mexican heritage of being unable to rule fairly in his case because of that ancestry, he really asserted an expectation of prejudice in our judicial system.  When he says he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin over American intelligence agencies, he attacks our democratic institutions by believing a former communist KGB agent over the dedicated men and women who risk their lives for our country. The same goes for seeking Putin’s advice about dealing with North Korea over the advice of our intelligence professionals.

Fascism Again

Even if we can’t conclude Trump’s un-democratic acts mean we’re headed for a fascist state, Secretary Albright’s warnings remain relevant:

--Fascism rarely makes a dramatic entrance.  Typically, it begins with a seemingly minor character – Mussolini in a crowded cellar, Hitler on a street corner – who steps forward only as dramatic events unfold.  The story advances when the opportunity to act comes and Fascists alone are prepared to strike. That is when small aggressions, if unopposed, grow into larger ones, when what was objectionable is accepted and when contrarian voices are drowned out …. We have learned from history that Fascists can reach high office via elections. When they do, the first step they attempt is to undermine the authority of competing power centers, including parliament or, in America, Congress.”

Fascism: A Warning pp. 229 & 234  

We think America’s first order of business remains removing Trump from office by impeachment or at the ballot box. His actions constitute a clear threat to democracy. Democrats, Republicans, Independents,

Socialists, members of the Green Party, and those not part of any organized political group must join in this effort. We can fight out our disagreements on tax policy, immigration, reproductive rights, and many other issues without this President. We can even agree democracy has its flaws and requires constant re-examination and improvement. But whatever democracy’s flaws, we must preserve it over autocratic forms of government. We can never relinquish our right to choose our leaders at the ballot box.  That right must remain inviolate. Is that even arguable?