Trump Wants the DOJ to Go After the New York Times Op-Ed Author

President Trump’s rush to authoritarianism should scare people.

It bothers many Americans. We now know it alarms his Cabinet and staff.

I dare say that the only one not freaking out over Trump’s despotic aspirations are his red-capped devotees, who don’t really understand what authoritarianism is. All they care about is if Trump says it, they believe it, and that’s the end of it.

And speaking of Trump’s authoritarian bent, the op-ed from an anonymous White House senior official that popped up in The New York Times this week has obviously shaken him, as well as most of the nation’s politicos.

Unfortunately, people seem more concerned about who wrote the op-ed, when they should be more concerned with what was said in the op-ed.

On Friday, the president suggested that the Department of Justice should take up the case and investigate who, within his administration, could possibly be behind the offensive screed.

The president also said he is “looking at” taking potential action against the Times, when asked by reporters aboard Air Force One, calling the decision to publish the op-ed a “disgrace.”

“We’re going to take a look at what he had, what he gave, what he’s talking about also where he is right now,” Trump said, according to the report.

“It’s national security,” Trump told reporters when asked if Attorney General Jeff Sessions should investigate who wrote the op-ed. He made the comments to reporters while on a campaign trip in North Dakota.

Go ahead and mark this one on the calendar. If Sessions doesn’t drop everything and pursue this, it will be the next topic of President Trump’s fever tweeting.

No doubt, whatever dysfunction was going on within the Trump administration before, the anonymous (or to quote Trump, the “enermonous” – and he mocks southern accents) op-ed  likely amplified, rather than pacified things.

The usual players are out in force hoping to do damage control.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders lashed out at both the anonymous author, as well as The New York Times’ opinion section, hoping to call the MAGA masses to arms.

“If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT,” Sanders wrote on Twitter. “They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act. We stand united together and fully support our President Donald J. Trump.”

YES! ARM YOURSELVES WITH OUTRAGE, MAGA MONKEYS, AND FLY!!

For those of you asking for the identity of the anonymous coward: pic.twitter.com/RpWYPHa6To

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) September 6, 2018

I’m sorry. I can’t shake the image of hundreds of winged monkeys in red MAGA caps taking to the air, in a Pepe-fueled rage because somebody spoke ill of their orange-hued master.

What actually happened was apparently not in Sanders’ plan, however.

Maggie Haberman, Sopan Deb and Dan Berry of the Times took to Twitter to say they received some praise instead of criticism from callers who explicitly said they were calling to counter Sanders’s tweet.

“Got four of these kinds of calls yesterday and one ‘eff you’ which [to be honest] is better than an average day’s ratio,” wrote Haberman, a White House correspondent for the paper.

Haberman wasn’t alone.

“Now for something different. Just got a call on my work line. ‘Hello, I’m looking for the opinion section. Sarah Huckabee Sanders told us to angrily call you. I am not angry. The New York Times is doing a great job,'” wrote Sopan Deb, a culture reporter for the paper. “I paused. Made me sad to tell her I wasn’t the right number.”

“Keep up the good work. You do have supporters out there. We love ya,” one woman said on Barry’s voicemail, adding that she didn’t know exactly where to call to leave the sentiment.

Or did Sanders think that it would be all bad?

Responding to Sarah Sanders, a reader calls The New York Times: pic.twitter.com/p6id73T2H8

— Dan Barry (@DanBarryNYT) September 7, 2018

Still, the Times’ news division has increased security, given the high profile nature of this particular controversy.

Trump will continue to rage and give everyone around him the side-eye. His loyalists will continue to blame the op-ed writer for disloyalty, rather than take a serious look at what was said in the piece. And the rest of us will encourage a united front by those who are seeing the same things as the author claims to have seen.