Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Donald Trump Is a Dangerous Demagogue. It’s Time for a Crusading Press to Fight Back (One of 350?)
The Intercept ^ | August 16, 2018 | James Risen

Posted on 08/16/2018 5:21:36 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

When Adolf Hitler came to power, after the Nazis had shut down all of Germany’s independent newspapers and magazines and ended press freedom in the country, Hermann Ullstein, a member of a highly regarded German publishing family, fled to New York and wrote a penetrating memoir of the rise and fall of his family’s media empire.

His father, Leopold Ullstein, a Jewish newspaper dealer, had founded Ullstein Verlag, the family publishing house, which at its pre-Nazi peak owned some of Germany’s most important publications, including the Vossische Zeitung newspaper. But when Hitler stole their press holdings, Hermann Ullstein and other family members fled, and by World War II, the Ullstein presses were being used to print Das Reich, a newspaper created by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

From his refuge in New York, Hermann Ullstein wrote critically of the failure of the German press to confront Hitler more aggressively when it still had a chance — before he came to power. In his 1943 book, Ullstein chastised the mainstream press in Germany for being too cautious in the pre-Nazi years, especially in comparison to the aggressive right-wing media that was rising during the late 1920s and boosting Hitler’s political fortunes. He lamented the weak response of “the loyal press,” his phrase for the pre-Nazi mainstream press “whose efforts were devoted to democracy, and whose failure was to a large extent due to mildness of language, to the tired and cautious spirit in which they fought.”

Hermann Ullstein’s criticism of the mainstream press of the pre-Nazi era would sound eerily familiar to anyone following the American media today as it tries to confront Donald Trump. Trump has repeatedly castigated the American press as “the enemy of the people” and has brought his political supporters to such a crazed pitch that many of them now consider journalists to be traitors. Some of Trump’s backers even seem to think that physical attacks on reporters are acceptable.

Trump uses his Twitter account to maliciously attack individual reporters, and journalists covering Trump’s dark and fevered rallies are now being forced to hire security personnel to protect themselves from the crowds. Trump seeks to discredit the mainstream press at every turn, while granting preferential access to news organizations that traffic in right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories.

He has pressured the Justice Department to launch a wide range of leak investigations of the press, and has politicized that process to such an extent that at least two of the first leak cases to be prosecuted by his administration have involved stories related to whether Russia has meddled in the American electoral system and whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to help Trump win the 2016 election.

Many in the American press today blanche at any comparisons between Trump and Hitler or other autocrats, and warn against overreacting to Trump. They also recoil at the notion that the press should go on a war-footing against Trump and eschew old-style journalistic crusades. They fear that such a confrontational approach will harm their credibility. Martin Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post, coined a phrase that succinctly captured this professional ethic — “We’re not at war, we’re at work.”

To be sure, plenty of reporters are doing great work under enormous pressure. Many news organizations continue to engage in aggressive investigative reporting about Trump, and much of what we now know about Trump’s corruption and possible collusion with Moscow has come from the press. But while that investigative digging is underway, Trump’s daily efforts to denigrate and discredit the press continue unabated, and his subversive efforts to undermine the media have had an impact. A recent poll showed that nearly nine out of 10 Republicans disapprove of the way the media has covered Trump.

The press often seems uncertain on how to respond. The White House press corps in particular seems determined to try to cover Trump as it has previous presidents, employing the same American journalistic standards and practices used in the past. Some press critics now believe that approach is too passive in the face of Trump’s malevolent approach.

“When the most powerful person in the world declares war on journalism, you can respond in one of two ways,” writes Dan Gillmor, co-founder of News Co/Lab and professor of practice at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “The first adds up to surrender. I’m sorry to say that some of you appear to have done so, by normalizing what is grossly abnormal and letting your enemies take advantage of the craft of journalism’s inherent weaknesses.”

It’s time to break with those civil traditions, other critics have added. “Journalists charged with covering him should suspend normal relations with the presidency of Donald Trump, which is the most significant threat to an informed public in the United States today,” argues Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University.

Some counter that Trump is only following in the press-bashing pattern set by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who both also used leak investigations to target reporters. (Believe me, I know about that. Both Bush and Obama came after me in a leak investigation that lasted seven years.)

But it is a mistake to see Trump as just another White House occupant following in a long tradition of presidential press-bashing. While the present-day U.S. is not Weimar Germany, Trump is not Hitler, and his incompetent administration has not come close to consolidating power in the way the Nazis did, Trump is nonetheless a dangerous demagogue who deploys some of the same tactics that Hitler did, and he has already gone further to attack the democratic institution of a free press than his predecessors did. He is seeking nothing less than the destruction of the legitimacy of the American press.

As Hermann Ullstein warned, such dangerous threats to press freedom are sometimes only taken seriously in hindsight. In 1964, the New York Times echoed Ullstein, writing that his family had made one critical mistake. “That was to believe that Adolf Hitler’s early statements of anti-Semitism were merely campaign oratory. They failed to turn the power of their papers and magazines against the rising Hitler until it was too late.”

Many in the American media believe that they are fighting back aggressively already. And indeed, in response to Trump’s attacks, hundreds of news organizations are publishing editorials about press freedom today. But that’s not enough. The response to Trump by the American press is still too tepid. Most American editors and reporters today disavow old-fashioned, crusading journalism, in which a news organization or even a group of news outlets throw all of their energy into an all-out assault on one story. They fear that crusades look partisan.

But crusading journalism is what is needed now. And there is a model to follow from recent American history. In 1976, Don Bolles, an investigative reporter with the Arizona Republic newspaper in Phoenix who had become well-known for his coverage of the Mafia, was killed when his car blew up. In response, investigative reporters from all over America poured into Arizona to continue Bolles’s reporting. In 1977, those reporters, working through what became known in journalism as the Arizona Project, produced a 23-part series on corruption in Arizona.

Today, more than 40 years later, American journalists should come together for a Trump Project.

👆


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: fascists; germany; nazis; trump
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-53 next last
To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yeah, it’s high time the deep state media dropped their pro-Trump bias...


21 posted on 08/16/2018 5:39:46 PM PDT by Ken H (Best election ever!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Signalman

The President calls the press out, they don’t like it.

The media lost the election. They are supposed to be in charge of who wins. They are lashing out like children and are losing more and more.


22 posted on 08/16/2018 5:41:33 PM PDT by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

It fights back daily and loses daily. That is why it hates the President. The media is evil and very unAmerican. It reduces any previous 5th column to a distant second place.


23 posted on 08/16/2018 5:44:16 PM PDT by mulligan (EeThe)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Flick Lives

Yep! Expect an assassination attempt on the president in the near future! We are living in very dangerous times when the mediapukes all across the nation are colluding for such a thing! We need to continue praying for Trump and his family’s safety!! I REALLY believe if he gets assassinated all hell will break loose in this nation! And the first ones to go will be the mediapukes count on it!


24 posted on 08/16/2018 5:49:45 PM PDT by RoseofTexas
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Ken H

Risen writes: They fear that crusades look partisan...
Today, more than 40 years later, American journalists should come together for a Trump Project. like these FAILURES?

Wikipedia: Newspaper endorsements in the United States presidential election, 2016
Media journalist Jim Rutenberg writes that endorsements in the 2016 presidential election are distinguished by “blunt condemnation” of the Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and by a “save the Republic” tone.
Many newspapers that endorsed Clinton encouraged readers to vote for her primarily, if not solely, to prevent Trump from being elected president...
Summary of daily newspapers
Hillary Clinton endorsements: 243
Donald Trump endorsements: 20
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper_endorsements_in_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2016

6 Oct 2016: NYT: The Editorialists Have Spoken; Will Voters Listen?
by Jim Rutenberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/06/business/media/the-editorialists-have-spoken-will-voters-listen.html

Most Damaging Wikileaks: Podesta emaila
5. Why is the media barely covering them?
A: Because almost 100% of mainstream media sources, as well as several prominent publishing news sources are implicated in the leaks in colluding with the Clinton campaign. These “news” sources (as you will find in the leaks below) have conspired to get Hillary elected, by only reporting anti-Trump smear pieces, manufacturing or exaggerating scandals, and hiding anything damaging to Hillary. Most are even donating big money to the Clinton campaign in order to keep the globalist status-quo. These revelations are the stories journalists dream of, but CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Huffington Post, AP, and several more are all implicated in the leaks. This is why the media has been so one sided this election season, and why only 6% of people trust the mainstream media. Trump hasn’t helped with some past comments, but as CNN said here, the media is doing everything they can to help Hillary and give her a free ride...

35. List of reporters that Hillary wined and dined, including biggest journalists and pundits of CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, NY Times, and a lot more. Off the record.
37. The New York Times colluding with Hillary, allowed quote edits...
97. ‘The Huffington Post’ colluded with Hillary
http://www.mostdamagingwikileaks.com/

14 Jun: NY Post: IG report finds FBI agents have cozy relationships with reporters (PUBLISH THEIR NAMES)
https://nypost.com/2018/06/14/ig-report-finds-fbi-agents-have-cozy-relationships-with-reporters/

UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE FAKENEWSMSM, AN AP POLL FOUND:

Apr 2016: NBC: Bad News: Just 6 Percent of People Say They Trust the Media
by Associated Press
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/bad-news-just-6-percent-people-say-they-trust-media-n557591

ONCE THEY COLLUDED/CRUSADED IN THE DARK:

Wikipedia: JournOlist
JournoList was a private Google Groups forum for discussing politics and the news media with 400 “left-leaning” journalists, academics and others. Ezra Klein created the online forum in February 2007...and shut it down on June 25, 2010 amid wider public exposure. Journalists later pointed out various off-color statements made by members of the list denigrating conservatives, as well as a seeming conspiracy to prop up then Presidential candidate Barack Obama…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList


25 posted on 08/16/2018 5:57:26 PM PDT by MAGAthon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

More TDS

#MAGA


26 posted on 08/16/2018 5:57:37 PM PDT by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Signalman
BINGO!
27 posted on 08/16/2018 5:57:59 PM PDT by entropy12 (Trump/Pence 2020)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Hitler and Tojo didn’t think America was so great either.


28 posted on 08/16/2018 5:59:55 PM PDT by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RoseofTexas

” And the first ones to go will be the mediapukes count on it!”

This^^^


29 posted on 08/16/2018 6:01:53 PM PDT by Electric Graffiti (Jeff Sessions IS the insurance policy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: Electric Graffiti

UPDATED: Rap Sheet: ***544** Acts of Media-Approved Violence and Harassment Against Trump Supporters
by John Nolte
When not calling Trump supporters “Nazis” as a means to dehumanize us, the establishment media like to whine about the lack of civility in American politics, even as they cover up, ignore, downplay, or straight-up approve of the wave of violence and public harassment we are seeing against supporters of President Trump.
It is open season on Trump supporters, and the media is only fomenting, encouraging, excusing, and hoping for more…
This list will be updated as needed. Back-filling it will be an ongoing project…
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/07/05/rap-sheet-acts-of-media-approved-violence-and-harassment-against-trump-supporters/


30 posted on 08/16/2018 6:04:19 PM PDT by MAGAthon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: BitWielder1

Because Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot were never the orators that Hitler was.

The liberals are scared of Trump because he can attract thousands to his speeches and keep them in an excited state throughout the rally. Only Hitler and to some extent Mussolini had that skill. Castro is basically a nobody with never having a powerful military and only a small population in Cuba, although he was a good orator.

But Trump’s agenda has nothing in common with Hitler’s agenda.


31 posted on 08/16/2018 6:05:05 PM PDT by entropy12 (Trump/Pence 2020)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: MAGAthon

“It is open season on Trump supporters, and the media is only fomenting, encouraging, excusing, and hoping for more…”

Yes they are...


32 posted on 08/16/2018 6:07:27 PM PDT by Electric Graffiti (Jeff Sessions IS the insurance policy)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Risen is getting torn apart in the Comments section.


33 posted on 08/16/2018 6:07:54 PM PDT by DarthVader ("The biggest misconception on Free Republic is that the Deep State is invulnerable")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: x

He was indicted by Obama, which apparently was less threatening than merely being insulted.


34 posted on 08/16/2018 6:09:06 PM PDT by madameguinot
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: MAGAthon

“But it is a mistake to see Trump as just another White House occupant following in a long tradition of presidential press-bashing. While the present-day U.S. is not Weimar Germany, Trump is not Hitler, and his incompetent administration has not come close to consolidating power in the way the Nazis did, Trump is nonetheless a dangerous demagogue who deploys some of the same tactics that Hitler did, and he has already gone further to attack the democratic institution of a free press than his predecessors did. He is seeking nothing less than the destruction of the legitimacy of the American press.”

Risen and his ilk can dish it out (and Journolist is not dead), but they can’t take it.


35 posted on 08/16/2018 6:10:11 PM PDT by Bookshelf (`)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 25 | View Replies]

To: mylife
Remember, the crusades were a response to Islam. Christianity had a reformation, Islam has not.

I don't want to hijack this thread but the two have nothing to do with each other and the so-called Reformation lead to many people being killed by the reformers

36 posted on 08/16/2018 6:13:20 PM PDT by frogjerk (We are conservatives. Not libertarians, not "fiscal conservatives", not moderates)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

What I see with the election of Trump is that he is brilliant when it comes to fixing a very broken economic machine but also calling onto the light the weaponization of our Fed agencies against the American people.

Does he have the finance of Regan?... NO and thank God.


37 posted on 08/16/2018 6:13:32 PM PDT by lizma2 (S)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

When Adolf Hitler came to power..”

lol. stopped reading.


38 posted on 08/16/2018 6:13:52 PM PDT by ConservativeDude
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

Hillary is Hitler. She just published a documentary about her struggle. And Alex Jones was the media. Get it now ?


39 posted on 08/16/2018 6:20:30 PM PDT by justa-hairyape (The user name is sarcastic. Although at times it may not appear that way.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: 2ndDivisionVet

The lying media is all wrapped up in their “freedom of the press” cloak. Yet, no one can tell me why the freedoms defined in the First Amendment belong to We the People..... EXCEPT freedom of the press is reserved to a minuscule segment of the population.

Anybody have an answer? The way I look at it is we don’t have a free press, so our Constitutional rights are being violated.


40 posted on 08/16/2018 6:34:42 PM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-53 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Smoky Backroom
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson