Let’s be really clear. This is not about mental illness. This is about dysfunctional thinking, this is about “ME FIRST” and damn everyone else — kill them, jail them, deport them. This is about our country’s normalization of these attitudes, vocally and aggressively led by our Twit-in-Chief.
I-N-C-I-T-E, this is what Herr Drumpf does. How many times has he ordered his supporters to remove people from rallies, to inflict bodily harm on them and state that he’d cover their legal expenses? (would the check clear?) Ranting about “FAKE NEWS” whenever he’s challenged with REAL NEWS about his administration, and his declaration that the press is the “Enemy of the American People” less than a month after taking office. On and on, over and over, whipping people into a frenzy — he must be held accountable.
President Trump, in an extraordinary rebuke of the nation’s press organizations, wrote on Twitter on Friday that the nation’s news media “is the enemy of the American people.”
Even by the standards of a president who routinely castigates journalists — and who on Thursday devoted much of a 77-minute news conference to criticizing his press coverage — Mr. Trump’s tweet was a striking escalation in his attacks.
At 4:32 p.m., shortly after arriving at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump took to Twitter to write:
The message was swiftly deleted, but 16 minutes later Mr. Trump posted a revised version. Restricted to 140 characters, he removed the word “sick,” and added two other television networks — ABC and CBS — to his list of offending organizations.
The president has referred to the media as the “opposition party” to his administration, and he has blamed news organizations for stymieing his agenda. But the language that Mr. Trump deployed on Friday is more typically used by leaders to refer to hostile foreign governments or subversive organizations. It also echoed the language of autocrats who seek to minimize dissent.
“Oh boy,” Carl Bernstein, the journalist who helped to uncover the Watergate scandal, said on Friday, after a reporter read him Mr. Trump’s tweet.
“Donald Trump is demonstrating an authoritarian attitude and inclination that shows no understanding of the role of the free press,” he added.
Historians pointed out similarities between Mr. Trump and Richard M. Nixon, who in 1972 told his national security adviser, Henry A. Kissinger, “The press is the enemy.
Mr. Bernstein said the president’s language “may be more insidious and dangerous than Richard Nixon’s attacks on the press.”
“But there is a similarity in trying to divide the country, and make the conduct of the press the issue, instead of the conduct of the president,” he said.
Mr. Trump and his top advisers strongly believe that an elitist news media lost its credibility by failing to anticipate his political rise.
Still, the notion of the news media as an enemy of the public — especially when voiced by a sitting president — went a step beyond Mr. Trump’s usual rhetorical turns.
Mr. Trump’s tactic of pitting the press against the public was mirrored in a survey distributed by the president’s team on Thursday, which urged Trump supporters “to do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions.”
Survey questions included, “Do you believe that the mainstream media has reported unfairly on our movement?” and “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans? (Select as many that apply.)”
Mr. Trump has deleted tweets in the past, sometimes to correct for typos or to refine his message, and publications are keeping track of these fleeting missives.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump expressed his distaste for journalists in more populist terms, saying, “much of the media in Washington, D.C., along with New York, Los Angeles in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests.”
“The public doesn’t believe you people anymore,” Mr. Trump added. “Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.”
Correction:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of the headline with this article misquoted the tweet President Trump wrote. He described the nation’s news media as the “enemy of the American people,” not the “enemy of the people.”
It’s pretty disturbing. Today started out with the Commission asking Intervenors to pick their least awful route option. WHAT?!?! That is NOT how a line is chosen. I think they’re using that to build a “record” (NOT!) for whatever decision they may make.
As the Commission was reminded, the Commission is to choose a route, only AFTER a Certificate of Need is granted, based on the criteria in the statutes and rules. Commissioner Sieben turned to a pretty manipulative attempt at burden of proof shift, looking for a statement to get them off the hook. NO!
NO? That’s correct. This is the Commission’s job, and if there’s no need, deny the application. If there’s no acceptable route, deny the application. The ALJ made a Recommendation, and the Commission has to deal with that.
Then there’s the push about System Alternative SA-04. That route would go right through my Association of Freeborn County Landowners’ community, and AFCL filed an Exception regarding that SA-04 route:
“Our” CD2 Rep. Jason Lewis does not represent me (nevermind that he doesn’t even live in this Congressional District!!). He demonstrated at his “Town Hall” meeting that he is clueless about so much. He hasn’t held Town Hall meetings and is obviously afraid of his “constituents.”
Don’t be distracted by procedure, his ticket lottery, or the attempts to shut up and shut down constituents.
What’s important about this is taking note of the issues he’s most vulnerable on as displayed at the “Town Hall:
Harsh positions on immigration position without recognition of role and work of immigrants in CD2;
Food stamp work requirements without recognition that Minnesota already has work requirement laws and that people working at minimum wage qualify for food stamps and child care must be available for people to work (and cost of child care is often equal to pay for low wage jobs).
Spouting the “anti-college” mindset, when it’s not binary. We need to have all educational options available and accessible to anyone who wants to learn, whether a trade, a B.A./B.S, and/or grad school — I’ve been to all of the above, and could never have gotten a B.A. without 916 VoTech and truckdriver training! Anyone who can make the grade should be welcomed. Education is the key to economic stability — well, coupled with home ownership so people can weather economic crisis and invest in community.
He talks around climate change and rather than address cutting emissions, he promotes nuclear and Yucca Mountain. Yucca Mountain was proven unworkable, what, a decade ago?
Statements about “what’s causing the shootings?” and going on about mental illness and mentally ill should not own guns. Earth to Mars, that’s not the issue. It’s about mental dysfunctionality and white supremacist ideation at the root of nearly all mass shootings.
Fair use from Rolling Stone
