Maybe it’s just me but does anyone else see a parallel between these two events?
Compare Oct. 2 and Nov. 7 of this year:
- Oct. 2, 2018: A journalist named Jamal Kashoggi was killed inside the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. He was a critic of the Saudi Arabian government because he advocated that freedom of expression be allowed. It is reasonable to presume that the Crown Prince, Mohammad bin Salman, was involved in approving Kashoggi’s murder.
- Nov. 7, 2018: The president bans CNN news reporter Jim Acosta from attending future news conferences and later strips him of his press pass, the suspension to last “until further notice”.
[A slightly doctored video was released to try and justify this action even though it was plain to everyone that Trump was angered by Acosta’s questions; a quite transparent phony excuse was only added later. Dictators lie and manipulate evidence–not the president of a democracy.]
These two events may not seem equal in scope and magnitude; indeed they are not. Jamal Kashoggi was murdered while Jim Acosta was merely denied entry to White House press conferences.
The parallel is far more subtle. In both instances, rulers who dislike being questioned or criticized took action to curtail freedom of the press. Trump has made “fake news” one of his mindless slogans to heap scorn upon the media he doesn’t like.
He has also engaged in vitriolic attacks on honest hard-working, fact-checking journalists who represent our nation’s constitutional commitment to freedom of the press. He does not limit his acidic remarks to some shady gossip sheet, either, but vilifies the best of the best: our most honored and acclaimed media-based journalists.
It is obvious from history that autocrats, demagogues, and dictators of every ilk hate criticism of their actions, whether personal or political. These two rulers fit the pattern all too well. They know their actions do not fare well when placed under media scrutiny to be openly and thoroughly debated.
Granted, Acosta’s banishment is far less drastic than the Kashoggi’s murder but then, America has a long history of respecting democratic institutions and freedom of the press: we should know better.
Any occupant of the White House should know better than to engage in incessant attacks upon professional journalists doing their jobs, especially since the facts are often correctly reported by the press and more accurately than anywhere else. Meanwhile, the president’s tweets and outbursts are sloppily and inaccurately “rationalized” by the White House.
Trump’s reliance on exaggeration and falsehood is too well known to occasion further comment here. In part his reliance on lies speaks to the narcissistic nature of his personality. Beyond that, however, his contempt for the truth is part of the same vile pattern that all would-be dictators find useful: squelch criticism and dissent by all means available, fair or foul.
If power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. We half-expect the worse authoritarian rulers in the world to make an effort to stamp out freedom of the press in order to keep their corrupt ways hidden from view.
We don’t expect the president of the United States to indulge his own private temper tantrum against a respectable member of the press corps simply because he became irritated. At least, we didn’t use to expect such a result but who knows where the “new normal” (however mangled) may lead us?
To all those who say it can’t happen here, I say look again. We see that movement toward the fascist right can occur in a series of small incremental steps just as readily as through an outright coup.
Trump’s mishandling of his news conference, his savage verbal attack upon Jim Acosta, is a small but significant step in the erosion of America’s freedom of the press. The president is attempting to silence his critics by putting a muzzle on them and, through them, freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
How much longer will it be before we read of the death of an American journalist?
