Enemy of the People

Though the last few days have produced several items suitable for “most captivating news story of the week” (the Democrats took over control of the House of Representatives in the mid-terms; Donald Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions and replaced him with a so-called lawyer who has previously argued that a new AG could stop the Mueller investigation in its tracks by cutting its budget to the bone; some new nut case has murdered 12 or 13 people in a Country Music Bar in California), the news conference run by the President himself to comment on the mid-term election really takes the fascist prize. That is the one where the President’s racism emerged not once, but twice, hammering first his longtime nemesis Jim Acosta of CNN for even asking questions, and then the PBS Newshour’s Yamiche Alcindor for asking a question about his proud labeling of himself as a “nationalist.” 

            Let’s take Alcindor first. I have watched her on the Newshour for almost a year now, and she is careful, measured, and generally quite perceptive in her reports about this chaotic White House (though I must admit, her delivery is a bit too rapid for me). On Wednesday, she got up to ask Trump a question about his oft-repeated boast that he is a “nationalist.” She noted that many have interpreted this as emboldening “white nationalism,” and asked what he had to say about that. The President, so sensitive a creature, immediately took umbrage. “To say that what you said is very insulting to me,” the President responded, pointing his finger. “It’s a very terrible thing what you said.” Then he went into a completely unsupported rant about how he has “the highest poll numbers ever with African Americans,” and then repeated again that “That’s such a racist question.” And not content with having said it twice, he repeated it, “Honestly, I mean, I know you have it written down, and you’re going to tell me. Let me tell you: It’s a racist question.” He then explained that being a nationalist only means he loves our country. And then cut Alcindor off again to repeat how insulted he was: “Excuse me. But to say that—what you said is so insulting to me. It’s a very terrible thing that you said.” 

            One 'coincidence' deserves mention. On this very day, November 7, Patrick Casey, the leader of a white nationalist group called Identity Europa, posted pictures to Twitter of his visit to the White House, posing for selfies on the White House grounds. He said his visit was designed to “pay my respects,” and also added “Europa has landed at the White House!” 

            Among the important points to add about Trump’s berating of Alcindor is that she is an African American—a fact that made his ire about her question, about the “nerve” of someone like herasking him, the world’s great white leader, such a question, more fraught with meaning. What it suggested, in short, is that she, a person of color, ought to know her place; ought to know that asking a white President a question about racism was “insulting” and more, was itself “a racist question.” This is presumably because she, a black woman, had the temerity to ask a white man an impertinent question, and to do such a thing clearly—in the President’s eyes—revealed her own racism towards white people. 

            Of course, simply on its own, the President’s response to Alcindor was shocking (reverberating, as it does, with the ugly historical periods in the United States when such an ‘impertinence’ could have gotten a black person killed). But added to his response, the same day, to Jim Acosta of CNN, it comes to more than shock. It suggests that this President, if he could, would abrogate the entire First Amendment of the Constitution. That Amendment, the very first one, says: 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. 

This is about as plain as the founders could make it: a free press is necessary to the functioning of any self-governing republic. That’s because the press is one of the main checks on unlimited executive power which the founders worried so much about. They had had experience with English kings; they knew about the excesses of monarchs throughout Europe, and throughout both modern and ancient history. And they knew that the first step that despots take in moving towards unlimited power is to muzzle or outlaw a free press that can criticize them. 

            We are now in a situation in this nation where the chief executive has indicated repeatedly that he sees such a free press as a threat to his power. He has consistently labeled as “fake news” what the major and most respected media organs in this country—the NY Times, the Washington Post, CNN, etc.—report about him. He has gone even further with his contempt, calling the free press in this country (all except Fox News, his favorite, and a virtual propaganda arm of his administration), “the enemy of the people.” And in recent weeks, he has not only refused to censure the Saudi Arabian government for its blatant assassination and dismemberment of Washington Postcolumnist Jamal Kashoggi, he at first claimed that “nobody knows anything about it,” when evidence from Turkey about the murder seemed to be quite damning. He urged people and governments to wait and see what the Saudis could come up with in their investigation. As of this date, though he has claimed to be somewhat alarmed at the “bad stories” that are coming out, he has still not seen fit to condemn the Saudis for what was clearly a brazen, unapologetic and brutal assassination of a journalist who ‘didn’t know his place,’ didn’t show the proper deference to those in power. The outcome of all this might be seen in the bombs that were sent, recently, to not just major political figures like Barack Obama, but also to major news outlets like CNN—the very company Jim Acosta represents, and which Trump has attacked relentlessly for its critical reporting on him and his administration. In other words, the open attacks by the most powerful political figure in the world on journalists and their attempt to tell the truth about him—those attacks have real-world consequences. As, for example, the attack on the Capital Gazettein Annapolis MD, in which five people were shot dead (see Richard A. Oppel Jr., “Violence Aimed at Journalists in the United States,” NY Times, June 29, 2018.)

            So when the President of the United States, in a news conference which is traditionally a forum where journalists get to ask hard questions of a president, attacks a journalist like Jim Acosta personally, calling him a “rude terrible person” and repeatedly cutting him off, that is something to be alarmed about. So is the fact that one of the presidential interns, a woman, tried no less than four times to seize the microphone Acosta was using, until the president shouted something like “that’s enough” and she sat down. Acosta, by the way, was only asking a logical question: why had Trump labeled the migrant caravan from Central America as an “invasion of the country.” Trump refused to answer the question and kept ordering Acosta to sit down. The president tried to move on to another reporter but Acosta persisted, with another question about the Russia investigation, but Trump said he wasn’t worried because it was a “hoax.” When Acosta tried to continue, over Trump’s continued attempt to shut him up, “That’s enough. That’s enough,” the president insulted CNN: “When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, then you are the enemy of the people.” With this, Acosta finally yielded and Trump asked questions of other journalists.

            But it wasn’t over for Acosta. He reported that night on Twitter that “I’ve just been denied entrance to the WH (white house). Secret Service just informed me I cannot enter the WH grounds for my 8pm hit.” This means that Acosta’s livelihood as a journalist has been deeply threatened (though CNN has stoutly defended him). It also means that Donald Trump believes he can suspend press freedom if he takes a dislike to a reporter’s ‘impertinent’ questions. Perhaps more ominously, in an attempt to justify the banning of Acosta, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s press secretary with whom Acosta has sparred often in the past, tweeted that Acosta had laid his hands on a White House intern, and that was the reason for his ban. She included what was apparently a doctored videoof Acosta’s encounter with the intern, speeded up by the right-wing site InfoWars, to make it appear that Acosta had karate-chopped the intern’s arm. But the slower running of the video clearly shows that it was the female intern, not Acosta, who was grabbing at Acosta, and his microphone. She did it no less than four times. CNN itself said the White House’s ban of its reporter was “unprecedented,” and based on “lies.” CNN added that “It was done in retaliation for his challenging questions at today’s press conference…This unprecedented decision is a threat to our democracy and the country deserves better.”  

            The reaction on social media has been voluminous, many calling for the resignation of Sarah Sanders for her part in falsifying the video evidence. But the resignation, in this observers’ opinion, would be more appropriate coming from the president himself. The reaction of the people in this country to this kind of dictatorial behavior from the highest elected official of the United States—someone who has an obligation to those who elected him to publicly answer for his words and his behavior; otherwise, what is the meaning of government of, by, and for the people?—should be swift and meaningful. If we the people allow the most powerful man in the country to bully reporters, sully the reputation of journalists trying to do their jobs, and treat them like uppity second-class citizens whether or not they are people of color, then democracy in America has become a sad, sick, and dangerous joke. Then the people of this nation are allowing the real “enemy of the people” to lord it over them like any of the despots he so admires, and would obviously like to emulate if he could.

Lawrence DiStasi