Or: “Freedom of the Press? Under President Trump’s Administration, Maybe Not
The Fourth Estate – a free and open press – is critical to a free society.
Trump doesn’t like that. Neither do his deplorables (and that’s a kind word. I use others less kind with each passing week if this embarrassing monstrosity of a white house, to describe the hateful, stupid, fearful or cynical people that made this all possible), who use incredible phrases like “fake news” to ignore anything that doesn’t jive with the poisonous cool-aid they drink.
So the Monster-in-chief threw out legitimate news outlets, and told pretend news outlets like Fox they could stay.
No president in the modern era has ever taken such a step.
Know who has? Hitler. Mussolini. Stalin. Castro. Mao. Jong-Il.
He’s in good company. Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan would roll over in their graves. Bush I and II are embarrassed for us all.
But rather than have me make the argument on why it’s time to wake up and have the deplorables put down the kool-aid, apologize, and get to work with the rest of us, let me have some other people make the argument for me:
“The Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to bare the secrets of government and inform the people.” – Justice Hugo Black
“Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell.” – Justice Hugo Black
“When the public’s right to know is threatened, and when the rights of free speech and free press are at risk, all of the other liberties we hold dear are endangered.” – Christopher Dodd.
“A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.” – Albert Camus
So yeah, we’re on the right track.
