Emergency

Listen, Trump's treatment of the press us abominable.  But really, let's have some perspective on things.

A typical response to his excluding some mainstream press outlets from a briefing, from Dan Rather:

"The time for normalizing, dissembling, and explaining away Donald Trump has long since passed. The barring of respected journalistic outlets from the White House briefing is so far beyond the norms and traditions that have governed this republic for generations, that they must be seen as a real and present threat to our democracy...This is an emergency..."

An emergency.  As, apparently it is not an emergency when Trump acts to steal health care from thirty million people or so, or when he destroys Social Security, casting perhaps fifty million or more people who are too old to work into abject poverty, or when he begins the process of creating a national police force responsible only to him, or when he casts his eyes abroad, obviously looking for a war to start.

None of these things is an "emergency," like the rudeness involved in not inviting the New York Times along to hear more of what we all know will be nothing but lies anyway.

The mainstream press has spent decades playing along with the Republican party as they marched openly toward exactly where we are now.  They apologized for a war of aggression and for torture.  They did everything they could to hide the theft of our national wealth to give to the rich.  They averted their faces while the Republicans forged an electoral coalition built on hatred and greed.  But interfere with their precious access to powerful Republicans, and all of a sudden the country is in an emergency.

So I say this to these guys:  You built this monstrosity, which is going to make tens of millions of Americans suffer, while you keep your high paying jobs pumping out irrelevant, false narratives, and going home on the weekends to Long Island or Nantucket.  It's been decades since we could get the truth from your reporting anyway, so don't expect us to feel that sorry for you when Sean Spicer, someone who you should have never listened to for one second, leaves you out of a briefing.

Comments

Dikran Hagopian said…
"It's been decades since we could get the truth from your reporting anyway"

Green Eagle thinks that the New York Times and Washington Post are fake news, just like Donald Trump does.

"The mainstream press"

I have a hard time believing that the BBC and the Guardian have a preference for Republicans; note that Trump has cut off both organizations in the past few days.

Green Eagle thinks that foreigners aren't important, just like Donald Trump does.

Your sheet is showing.
Green Eagle said…
BBC and the Guardian...Dikran, I lived in England, when I was a research student at Cambridge. What exactly is your connection with the country?
Jerry Critter said…
Interesting point, GE. I guess it is an emergency only when it hits him personally.
Magpie said…
You have a point.

Qualified by the fact that these are organisations not individuals, those organisations have owners (though some individuals do too) and newspapers along with their editorials come into relative reliability for a time and then leave it again, in great continuous cycles.

But yes... the appropriate time to freak out is when political parties embark on things that must by definition lead to the deaths of the very citizens in whose name they have the nerve to speak, not when you don't get invited to talk with paid liars.
Dikran Hagopian said…
"What exactly is your connection with the country?"

You write about Turkey. What exactly is your connection with that country?

If you want to claim that the BBC and the Guardian promote Republicans, you'd better show me some evidence. Otherwise limit your criticism to the American media.
Green Eagle said…
My connection with Turkey is that I eat Turkey every Thanksgiving, which is more connection than you have with England, where I have lived and think I can fairly claim some knowledge of.
Percy said…
Do you have any connection with Wales?
Dikran Hagopian said…
I was sure your connection with Turkey is that you are a Large Green Turkey.

Tell me, if you develop dementia, how can anyone tell?

P.S. I still want to hear why you condemn the BBC and the Guardian.
Green Eagle said…
Percy, my wife and I are on our third Welsh Corgi. Does that count?

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