Today, U.S. President Donald Trump again called The New York Times and The Washington Post–the two best newspapers in this land–“the enemy of the people.” The New York Times, founded in 1851, has been awarded 127 Pulitzer Prizes. They have 1,300 reporters on their staff, with many of them being investigative reporters. The Los Angeles Times, the third biggest newspaper in the country, has said that The New York Times has twice as many reporters as they do.
As a professional golfer on the PGA Tour and its Senior/Champions Tour, I have traveled this country much of my life. I’ve been in every state in the union except Alaska. And I’ve always been a newspaper guy. I like to read the newspapers. Even when I was a teenager, I would read the front page of the newspaper just as much as I read the sports section. So, I think I have way more understanding about U.S. newspapers than the average citizen of this country does.
Newspapers are, and always have been, the very lifeblood of this democracy. They help protect our First Amendment rights. It says, “Congress shall make no law respecting . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.” If Donald Trump had his way, he would abolish any newspaper that says anything derogatorily about him. That would be the end of our democracy.
As I posted way back in 1/26/2017 and 9/4/2018, Trump does not believe in democracy. He believes in himself as a dictator. Today, he spoke publicly that he could see himself remain in office beyond the maximum two terms as the Constitution’s limit. He recently has mentioned this before. He says the “witch hunt/hoax” Mueller investigation has stolen part of the time of his presidency, even saying “two years.” He therefore believes that if he is reelected in 2020, he should be able to stay in office for the next six years. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has even mentioned the possibility that Trump may resist being removed from office, even if it is due to him losing reelection. What in the world is our country coming to pray tell?
Calling newspapers “the enemy of the people” is what the Nazis did in helping them to gain power in Germany. How do you like that? But this expression originated by the Roman Senate calling the madman Emperor Nero that (L. hostis publicus), shortly before he committed suicide. So, in our case, the head of our nation calls the press “the enemy of the people,” but this expression originated just the opposite–by the Roman leadership calling their emperor “the enemy of the people.” I think we should go back to how the expression originated, that President Trump is “the enemy of the people.”
It sure isn’t the newspapers that are “the enemy of the people.” Again, it’s just the opposite. Newspapers could not remain in business if they were constantly feeding us a bunch of lies like this president does. According to The Washington Post‘s Fact Checker, Donald Trump has publicly lied, or seriously misrepresented the truth about factual information, over 10,000 times. I don’t see how anyone could beat this man in a liar’s contest! The enemy of the people is the man in the White House who is a great big liar.
And don’t tell me I’m not being Christian for saying this. I’ve already addressed that objection in previous posts. Jesus once said to his Jewish interlocutors, “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8.44 NRSV).
Donald Trump is so full of hogwash about saying newspapers are very unfair in their reporting about him. Believe me, from my experience with newspaper reporters, they are some of the most objective and non-partisan people I have ever met.
Most editorial boards of U.S. newspapers don’t publicly come out in favor of one of the two people running for president in the last months of a presidential campaign. But when Donald Trump was campaigning for the presidency, something happened that was unprecedented. By the summer of 2016, near the time of the presidential election in November, the editorial staffs of 55 of 57 newspapers of our largest cities had come out against Donald Trump as president. But the people paid little or no attention to it.
I think Donald Trump should be impeached and thrown out of the White House that he has turned black just because he calls our leading newspapers “the enemy of the people.” He infects people with these lies, and some of it will have a lasting effect on this nation. Donald Trump is a dangerous man to our democratic republic.
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