Trump is Like Mao and Stalin With 'Authoritarianism 101' Media Attacks: 'Morning Joe'
Trump is Like Mao and Stalin With 'Authoritarianism 101' Media Attacks: 'Morning Joe'
Donald
Trump has long had beef with the press. His crusade against his version
of “fake news”—defined more by what he likes than by anything to do
with accuracy—has become a hallmark of his presidency. Less than a month
after taking office, in one of his characteristic ranting tweets, he said that “the FAKE NEWS media”—including The New York Times, NBC News, ABC, CBS and CNN—“is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
On Wednesday, he attacked again. “It’s frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever they want to write,” he said to reporters in the Oval Office. “People should look into it.” The comments came after NBC reported
that Trump discussed multiplying the U.S. nuclear arsenal tenfold at a
national security meeting, prompting Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to
call him a “moron” in July.
When Trump calls the media the “enemy of the people,” he is “channeling Chairman Mao and Joseph Stalin,” Joe Scarborough said on Thursday’s episode of Morning Joe.
The almost offhanded comment led into a segment discussing the latest
of many “shocking things” Trump has said. It compared the American
president to two of the 20th century’s most infamous dictators, Mao
Zedong and Joseph Stalin, who ruthlessly ruled Communist China and the
Soviet Union, respectively.
Trending: Sea Cucumbers Can Puke Up Their Guts and Grow New Ones, and Scientists Are Figuring Out How
Even
though Trump’s past statements have already called to mind these men,
Scarborough said the most recent remark about reporters being able to
write what they want “may be the most frightening of all” and, to use
Trump’s word, “the most disgusting.” The president, he said, is
“dismissing the most sacred right Americans have had since 1787.”
“It’s
an attack on the media to be sure, but more profoundly, it’s an attack
on the First Amendment,” said Mark Halperin, a senior political analyst
for NBC News and a guest on Morning Joe. He went on to explain
that “the whispers that you used to hear only on the left, about the
notion that he should be removed or about a presidency in crisis, that
is now said by people who are friends of the president, who are advisers
to the president.”
When
Trump makes such anti-press comments, Halperin added, it only heightens
concern among those people about the president’s “state of mind” and
his ability to do the job.
The
hosts and their guests questioned Trump’s understanding of both the
First Amendment and the media. Regardless of whether he is aware, news
organizations “have strict protocols in place that mean that they cannot
write whatever they want to write. You have to do your reporting,” said
Katty Kay of BBC World News America. “For someone who watches an awful
lot of television, you’d think he might be more curious about the way
news organizations actually gather their news.”
Toward
the end of the segment, co-host Willie Geist circled back to the Mao
and Stalin comparison. “This is Authoritarianism 101. You delegitimize
the press, you delegitimize your opponents, and then you try to destroy
them,” he said.
“He’s
saying to people who support him and the American people, ‘Don’t
believe your eyes and your ears when it comes to things that criticize
me,’” Geist added. “Any authoritarian in history has done this early and
often.”
More from Newsweek
No comments:
Post a Comment