Your bag is empty.
The past week has seen some extraordinary movement by the president of the United States, extraordinary even by the chaos principle that rules Donald Trump. He’s definitely feeling some heat.
He attacked Obama-era national security advisor Susan Rice, Joe Biden, other Republicans, Barack Obama and Dr. Anthony Fauci. He claimed he’s taking hydroxychloroquine as a prophylactic to ward off the coronavirus, though there’s no evidence that it works. He has threatened to withhold federal funding to states such as Michigan that have expanded mail-in voting. He accused Morning Joe co-host and former congressman Joe Scarborough of murder.
But wait—there’s more. He defended political strategist and convicted felon Roger Stone and former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes. He continued to muzzle the CDC, tried to distract or defuse an investigation into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “Madison Dinners” and fired an inspector general investigating Pompeo and scrutinizing a Trump administration Saudi arms deal.
A very good White House source tells me that Trump these days is “apoplectic,” but I think that’s just because the source likes saying the word. We know Trump is scattershot and random, which I’m told could be a side effect of hydroxychloroquine.
There’s no doubt he’s scared. Tuesday he took it out on Fox in a tweet in which he said he’s “looking for a new outlet.”
Trump is serious about this effort, because he needs to divide the media in order to sell his chaos. Cast doubts on the facts, make up your own and broadcast them loudly and often. That’s the key.
I got smacked in the face Monday on three different internet news sites with a survey about the media from President Donald Trump’s campaign.
I ignored it twice, but obeying comedy’s rule of threes, on the third attempt I acquiesced.
The poll, besides being a quagmire of fuzzy thinking, is a study in how to steer opinion.
Among the questions: “Do you believe that the mainstream media actually cares about working Americans?” “Do you believe that the mainstream media has unfairly reported on our presidency?” Three different questions asked, “Do you trust MSNBC, CNN, Fox News to fairly report on our presidency?”
The poll gave me a choice of eight different issues on which the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans. I could select as many as I thought applied, including immigration, economics, “pro-life values,” religion, individual liberty, conservatism, foreign policy and Second Amendment rights.
The poll asked about due diligence in fact-checking and whether I supported Trump’s executive order “restricting people entering our country from nations compromised by radical Islamic terrorism.”
It asked me about political correctness and whether I thought the “media is engaging in a witch hunt to take down President Trump.”
It asked me about the treatment of people of faith and whether I thought the media wrongly attributed gun violence to Second Amendment rights. It further asked me whether I thought the media used slurs to attack conservatives, pit Republicans against one another in order to elect Democrats, spread false stories about “our movement” and “turned a blind eye to Planned Parenthood’s worst actions,” without saying what those worst actions were. I guess we’re going to have to imagine.
It asked me, “Has the mainstream media been too eager to jump to conclusions about rumored stories?”
Two of the funniest questions came at the end of the poll.
First, “Do you believe that if Republicans were obstructing Obama like Democrats are doing to Trump, the mainstream media would attack Republicans?”
The final question: “Do you believe that our party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?”
The poll, besides being a quagmire of fuzzy thinking, is a study in how to steer opinion. There is no definition of mainstream media, no clear understanding in many cases of what the pollster was asking. Of the final questions, one is complete gibberish and the other is a ploy to achieve vindication for actions already taken.
After I answered the survey as honestly I could, I supplied my e-mail address. A short time later I got an e-mail back from the Trump reelection campaign.
Brian,
Thank you for joining my team!
I am counting on my loyal supporters like you to carry us to victory again in 2020.
We are up against an unhinged left-wing mob, a Democratic party that has embraced radical socialism, and the FAKE NEWS media that will NEVER tell the truth about all of our accomplishments.
As a member of Team Trump, I want to be sure you’re always up to date with the latest news from our campaign. If you sign up for texts, I’ll personally send you updates directly to your phone.
Trump is raising funds with inflammatory rhetoric and, with the promised telephone updates, giving his supporters a mainline to the opiate of the Donald. Shoot the drugs (or disinfectant) all you like, but I’ve covered a lot of news regarding addicts. It seldom goes well. While some are lucky enough to free themselves of their addiction, others end up in rehab, and still others suffer a worse fate. Trump just wants to sell you the drug.
Bottom line: The press is failing.
Trump’s actions have mobilized a group of GOP members who are working to elect Biden. The Lincoln Project, a group of Republican leaders, is already striking at Trump from the center and the right. California congressman Eric Swalwell announced Wednesday morning he is heading up a PAC that will take it to Trump from the center and the left. As the Lincoln Project recently did, Swalwell’s group released a devastating video reminding people of Trump’s inaction at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This November, Swalwell’s “Remedy PAC” video tells us, we are “literally voting for our lives.”
Or to put it another way, “Idiocracy is not supposed to be a documentary about the Trump administration,” as a disgruntled former administration staffer told me last week.
The descent into the madness that became Trump’s idiocracy began when I was still a teen, with Richard Nixon’s struggle to control the media.
Nixon influenced Reagan, and it was Reagan, Roger Ailes, Reagan-era FCC chair Mark Fowler and a few others who began changing regulations and rules and passing laws that gutted the media.
Prior to Reagan the airwaves were considered a public trust. Fowler famously said otherwise: To him, it was the same as “selling toasters.” Deregulation was sold as a way to save the media, and industry consolidation followed.
As a result, the press no longer fulfills its duty to the Republic. Trump calls it “fake news,” which we never had until we had Trump. I call it a systematic abuse of the First Amendment whose origin resides in Nixon’s frustration with the press.
Fewer independent voices at the White House is indeed a huge problem—but the times are far more desperate. Thanks to Trump’s iniquitous handling of the coronavirus pandemic, there are fewer reporters physically at the White House: Where there were hundreds, there are usually now only a dozen. Having fewer reporters allows the White House to more easily manipulate the message. And the new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, has benefited most. She got a congratulatory tweet from her boss over the weekend while fans produced memes glorifying her recent appearances in the briefing room.
It is one thing to be able to handle a small gathering of reporters that includes hand-picked guests, and another to handle a crowded room of 125 journalists from around the world. Conveniently Trump’s new secretary came into office at the height of the COVID-19 epidemic; so far, she’s gotten by with a smile and a pleasant demeanor. But at the end of the day she still works for Donald Trump. No one who works for the president does anything more or less than what he wants. We’re being played.
Bottom line: The press is failing. Part of the problem lies in the lack of institutional knowledge among the White House press corps. For many reporters this is their first administration. They do not know the requirements of their job and find it more difficult to learn because there are so few left with years or decades of first-hand experience. Doug Mills, a photographer from The New York Times, Steve Holland from Reuters and John Roberts from Fox News are three who come to mind who know their business well. There are many others, but those three are among the few still there on nearly a daily basis.
There will come a time when the national sickness passes—when we reflect on how we got here and how we move forward. The press, cornered and cowed, will have to come to terms with its own responsibility in this mess. In the beginning we treated Trump as a novelty act, gave him free media and in so doing promoted him. When he got into office we fought with him and on occasion fought each other. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, social distancing meant fewer reporters, and Trump took advantage of that circumstance as he has every circumstance at every turn.
He is, as his recent poll shows, a master of distraction and manipulation.
He is too crazy to govern, but he may be crazy enough to get reelected.
But he is a caged political animal being attacked from the right, left and center. And his attacks will only become more vicious if his defeat becomes inevitable.
Judging by the events of the past week, he’s scared victory will elude him come November.