Today on The BradCast: On the 47th anniversary of the Nixon White House creating its then-confidential “enemies list” featuring, among others, many members of the media, Donald Trump’s intensifying attacks on the press have now resulted in a majority of Republicans (51%) believing that the press is the “enemy of the people” rather than “an important part of democracy”, according to a new Quinnipiac poll finding just 36% of self-identified GOPers agree with the latter. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
(Though I’ve also got a few thoughts and, perhaps, a warning on today’s show regarding what to make of polling of self-identified Republicans these days. I think it’s very possible our polls may now be broken, as we discuss a bit today.)
In response to the repeated and worsening attacks on the press by the President of the United States, some 350 newspapers today issued editorials in support of press freedoms. We join them in calling for support of media outlets — particularly local newspapers and independent outlets — who are struggling to stay alive and, yet, are needed more now than ever. (Yes, we too welcome your support for the same reason.)
That, as evidence continues to come to light underscoring the lies told to the American people by Donald Trump and the GOP while selling their tax cuts for the rich and corporations to the American people. In fact, those tax cuts won’t not “pay for themselves” (the federal deficit this year will now be close to $1 trillion, thanks to plummeting revenue to the government in the wake of the cuts to the wealthy and corporations), nor have they increased wages for members of the working class (who are now making less than they did before the cuts, thanks to inflation and pay that has remained largely stagnant for workers.)
Less than three months out from the crucial 2018 midterms, Trump’s tariffs and trade wars are continuing to worsen their toll on workers as well. Factories are shutting down or moving jobs to Mexico and other “off shore” locations in order to survive new added costs of tariffs on imported manufacturing supplies from China and elsewhere.
And, speaking of con jobs by this President, a new report finds his planned military parade, scheduled just days after the upcoming midterm elections, is now estimated to cost taxpayers some $92 million. That is some $80 million higher than a report on the parade’s estimated cost last month, which was “only” $12 million at the time. That lower price tag is almost as much as the cost of military exercises with South Korea that Trump cancelled after his recent summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un because, at $14 million, they were “tremendously expensive” and, he tweeted, “we save a fortune” by not holding them. (Shortly after we got off air today, new reports suggest the military parade will now be postponed until 2019…if it’s ever held at all.)
Also today, before we get to today’s Green News Report‘, a brief tribute to the life and civil rights legacy of Aretha Franklin, the beloved “Queen of Soul”, who died today at the age of 76.
Then, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest GNR, in which — among many other stories — Interior Dept. Secretary Ryan Zinke is revealed as a liar for promising, upon taking office, that public lands would not be sold off. In fact, as reported this week, his Department has now drawn up draft plans to do exactly that.
So, if you’re keeping track this week, the President of the United States has called the press “the enemy of the people” and “very disgusting”, while the head of his Interior Department has called mainstream environmental groups “terrorists”. But it’s Democrats, we are told, who are being uncivil in their response to this Administration.
Finally, a disturbing follow-up to today’s GNR for people who eat food, after last week’s $289 million jury award to a man with terminal cancer, after determining that Monsanto knowingly sold toxic RoundUp weed killer despite studies finding that it causes cancer. And, in related news, recently obtained internal EPA emails reveal that its disgraced and now former chief Scott Pruitt’s staff were very concerned about formaldehyde used in a desk they were considering purchasing for his newly remodeled office, even as the agency blocked the release of a public report highlighting the dangers of the very same carcinogen in public drinking water…
I think I know the reason that it was the Boston Globe that led the editorials’ charge in reply to Trump’s attacks on the press. I made a reference to it in a comments’ section entry a few Bradblog posts ago, with an advisory that I would not spoil a certain sequence in an episode from the second season of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. As it happens, it has become well known and inspired a lot of commentary. If you saw that episode, you will figure it out and know the reason yourself. Again, I won’t spoil it. But it is clear to me.
If you have not seen it but don’t mind spoilers, check this out. You will get it then. It just HAD to be the Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/art...5jM/story.html
And here: https://www.elitedaily.com/p/wh...-story-8878127
My only worry is that this intervention by the press is, frankly, nearly half a century too late. They should have jumped on the Republicans when they first floated the idea of the “liberal media” back in the 1970s and into 1980s, and hard. The press could have beaten it back in those days by accusing the Right of being a bunch of anti-democratic crybabies who, after all the crimes they had committed, had a fat lot of gall accusing the press of being unpatriotic. It would have been a blow they could not have recovered from and they would not have tried it again.
But the Cold War was raging and the Southern Strategy was working and so on. After Watergate and America’s War in Viet Nam, it was quite a feat for the Right to attack the press and succeed. After all these decades, the expression “liberal media” is now so familiar and accepted without question that the press’s response NOW and to Trump could easily be explained away and dismissed by that expression without the speaker having to justify it. He or she need not even define “liberal” – nearly five decades of Rightist propaganda has already done the “work”. Just say it and it is true without question.
So now the press raises its battered head to gurgle through a mouth of blood and broken teeth its tiny defiance to Trump. I have my doubts that it will take in the absence of a coordinated campaign of relentless truth-digging and truly aggressive reporting, and willfully accepting that Trump is not merely the object of their political reporting because he is supposedly the President of the United States. Rather, he is THEIR enemy. With certain important differences aside, Trump is unwittingly styling himself as a jihadist of sorts and the press is his Charlie Hebdo.
It is time that everyone woke up to that reality. But it precedes Trump by decades. By letting it go on so long and even internalizing it (sometimes by waging war on itself: soon, we’ll say “good bye” to the New York Daily News – and that is just ONE example, with media consolidation being another) the press has made itself weak in defiance on the one hand and openly complicit in the state’s official crimes on the other. Judith Miller, anyone?
Still, what we have is a start. But it is only a start. The press must truly understand what its role is in a democracy, and as such the only profession explicitly provided with Constitutional protection from the state. Let’s see where this goes, y’all.
Donald Pruden @1 said:
Beggers, choosers, etc! 😉
You are, of course, correct. I’m happy to see them stand up for themselves (finally and sorta), and I discussed, on yesterday’s show, the years that the GOP have been priming the pump for all of this. And, while I made clear my disdain for the media’s bad work (while making clear that it doesn’t make them “the enemy of the people”), I probably didn’t drive home the point you make well here, that, in many ways, they have much themselves to blame for the pickle that they (and us along with them) are now in.
So, thanks for pointing that out here.
And thank YOU for that tribute to Aretha Franklin. “Long live the Queen” indeed. Well said.
Ms. Franklin was only one of two stars I fell in love with.
The other was Carol Burnett.
Operation Mockingbird. The CIA tainted the free press well before people started calling it “liberal.”
Donald Trump says bad things about the New York Times and other press and calls them an enemy so he is evil, right? Fair enough if the answer is yes, that is certainly inflammatory language.
Facebook/Youtube/Apple/Twitter are out there wholesale banning and shadowbanning people who they don’t agree with because of “hate speech” or “violations of community guidelines.” Most of those affected are conservative or libertarian. Some are also liberal/left that are actually independent, have integrity, and are willing to challenge the ever expanding list of PC police sacred cows.
Does anyone here think that Donald Trump’s twitter rants are more dangerous than what the social media and tech companies are doing right now? Does anyone here care about election meddling? This banning or restricting the reach of the most prominent independent conservative and liberal voices will have a serious effect on the election results.
Does this bother anyone here? Would it bother you if it was mostly progressive voices being banned?
These are all rhetorical questions and I am just making a statement; these issues obviously aren’t really on the radar of this blog or the radio show.
It is becoming increasingly clear that in fact history can repeat itself.
The minority report (How To Identify The Despotic Minority – 2).