Representative-Elect Greg Gianforte’s violent physical assault on reporter Ben Jacobs for doing his job as a reporter was beyond disgraceful, beyond inexcusable. But it was just one small symptom in something far bigger and far more sinister that is happening in and to our republic.
My greatest fear regarding Trump, from early in his campaign, was what he would do to the First Amendment in this country. My fear is being realized.
Trump hasn’t, yet, completely destroyed freedom of the press. Occasionally he has even been forced by public outrage to walk back one of his attacks. But bit by bit, he is eroding away First Amendment protections, and bringing about the normalization of denying Americans access to information they are entitled to about their government.
It started with the demonization. There were few, if any, more horrifying aspects of the Trump campaign than how he caged the press at his rallies, pointed to the cages, and encouraged the crowds to engage in the Two Minutes Hate.
That was Step One. Step Two was his sending his execrable surrogates (even their names are marks of shame in our national history: Kellyanne Conway, Kayleigh McEnany, Boris Epshteyn) out to engage in such Gish-Galloping lies that they began to erode the very concept of Truth. Sean Spicer and Sara Huckabee Sanders have accelerated the pace of this erosion with their habit of promulgating outright lies as a standard feature of White House daily briefings.
Step Three — and this is the only one where he ended up walking parts of it back — is when he was sworn into office and basically threatened to expel reporters from the White House and stop doing briefings. (Side note — what does it mean to be “sworn into office" for a man whose relationship with the truth is virtually nonexistent?)
But fortunately for Trump, it turns out to be easier to implement Step Three when you’re on a foreign trip than when you’re at home in the White House. And that’s exactly what he’s been doing for the past week and a half.
Consider the ways he is pulling this off, as we learned from reporters who spoke with Thomas Roberts and Joy Reid on MSNBC this morning:
Throughout Trump's entire trip, the United States has been the ONLY western country whose press pool has not had access to the leader they are traveling with. All other Western nations' press pools did have such access. Trump and the administration have held no press conferences on this trip. American leaders have not gone on camera at all to talk with the press. Trump has done no live briefings with the press at all, whether on- or off-camera The couple of briefings done by other members of the administration have been off-camera. (Most notable was the briefing by McMaster, who, in the words of Joy Reid, is being “Colin Powelled” — exploited and sent out to lie and stonewall for the administration because he is the one person available who has gravitas and credibility.) The traveling press has not been allowed to ask Trump any questions When they asked McMaster & Spicer questions about Russia situation, they got no answers. The press did not get to take any photos at all. They are only able to show photos coming out of the foreign press or submitted to them by the White House.Trump works for us. Any trips he takes are supposed to be for our benefit. Our free press is entitled to obtain and communicate to us complete information about what he is doing. But instead, as counterintelligence expert Malcolm Nance said, Trump is
"using the Kremlin playbook for control of information."
He is equally hostile to all the other clauses of the First Amendment, but freedom of the press is the one where I think is likely to be able to do the most damage.
Please contact your Republican “representatives” and demand that they speak out against the destruction of the First Amendment — the foundation of all our other rights and liberties, the bulwark of government accountability, the institution that stands between us and a future as a tyrannical autocracy.
*Update — h/t Had Enough Right Wing BS (emphasis mine):
We need to continue to vote with our budgets. . . .
Boycotts of Hannity and O’really, Limbaugh and others can be part of it. Beyond that we need to support those reporters who are remaining true to their calling. . . . If we hope that good journalism can survive we must do our part by being willing to pay for the work we value. The other side will sure be there for the worst performers.