Big Brother and The Ministry of Truth: Trump and The (Dishonest) Media

If you run across Eric Arthur Blair anytime soon, be sure to let him know that, though the dystopian society he described in his classic novel, 1984, has not been fully realized, we can finally say that Big Brother actually exists, has established an almost constant presence via television and social media, has used the demagoguery of fear and anger to establish a body of uncritical congregants who worship him with an almost messianic fervor---"Only I can fix it!"---and is doing all he can to establish himself as the Only/Ultimate Purveyor of Truth.

While you've got his ear, tell George Orwell---Eric Arthur Blair's pen name---that Big Brother's name is Donald Trump and that the address of his Ministry of Truth is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

DISHONEST DONALD OR THE DISHONEST MEDIA?

Donald Trump is not the first politician to unleash a stream of hostile invective against the media when confronted with embarrassing facts or facts that reflect poorly upon him/her personally or his/her policies. Indeed, I suspect one would have to turn over nearly every rock in a granite quarry to find a politician who never tried to target the press as a way of deflecting blame for some unpleasant circumstance of his/her own making.

But I am relatively sure that no president in our history---including Richard Nixon, who "at his most demented never levelled the sort of charges Trump hurls on a daily basis"---can match the volume and degree of hostility, the vile denigration and the sinister motives that define Trump's relationship with the media. Near the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, Clarence Page, writing in the Chicago Tribune, only half-joked that "conditions for journalists who cover Donald Trump's campaign have become so bad that some reporters are requesting transfers to Aleppo."

Example?

In November, 2015, Trump knowingly lied at an Alabama rally by trying to pass off to his frenzied followers the urban legend of "thousands and thousands of people...cheering in Jersey City, New Jersey, where you have large Arab populations...when the World Trade Center came tumbling down..."

It is well-documented that this is not the truth. It is a lie. PolitiFact, after doing due diligence, gave it a Pants-on-Fire rating.

And, when Trump doubled-down on his made-up story by saying that "I watched in Jersey City, New Jersey, where thousands and thousands of people were cheering as the building was coming down," the fact-checkers at the Washington Post, after exhaustive investigation, gave his assertion Four Pinocchios.

Trump, being Trump, refused to back down, repeating the lie at his campaign rallies in order to ramp up the right-wing's long-standing hostility toward first, anyone who is not white and of European ancestry and, second, the credible, mainstream press (which does not include internet propaganda rags like The Washington Times, Breitbart, Infowars, WorldNetDaily, Downhill, The Daily Stormer, etc., the last five of which routinely push bogus conspiracy theories, alt-right white nationalism, carefully as well as not-so-carefully veiled anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim fervor and, in the case of The Daily Stormer, neo-Nazi sentiments---you get the picture).

Indeed, Trump became profusely angry when a New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, rightly suggested, at a press briefing, that the story of Arabs/Muslims "cheering" when the World Trade Center collapsed had been debunked time and again as having no factual basis. So angry, in fact, that, to the delight of another rally of visceral, low-information voters in South Carolina, Trump began to mock Kovaleski's very apparent physical disability---he has arthrogryposis, which affects the mobility of his joints and is particularly apparent in his right arm and hand---by flopping his right arm around and holding his hand at an odd angle while speaking as if he had a speech disorder.

Despicable doesn't describe it.

Let me say that again: Despicable doesn't describe it.

Despite the video evidence that he had, indeed, behaved despicably, Trump lied again by denying that his attempt at publicly humiliating a member of the media was anything of the sort---one wonders what else it could have been. This lie was supported by the likes of Ann Coulter---when you have to depend on Ann Coulter to defend you, you're in trouble---who, in a caustic attack on the media, claimed that Trump was not mocking Kovaleski because she had seen him mock other people in the same fashion.

Huh?

As I said, when you have to depend on Ann Coulter to defend you...

Perhaps you've seen a tape of it. If you have, then you no doubt asked yourself, "We elected this empty suit, this disgusting shell of a human being, to the most powerful position in the world?"

Well, hopefully you asked yourself something like that.

If you didn't, feel free to contact me and defend your vote for a pathological narcissist whose infantile, bottomless pit need for approval from rally-goers generated a willingness to cruelly mock a disabled man to the delight---which makes the whole episode really dark---of thousands of fawning supporters.

Treatment of the press at Trump's rallies only grew more volatile and purposefully humiliating as the campaign progressed.

Trump organizers literally began to corral the credentialed media at the back of rally halls, penning them in by ropes or actual fences and not allowing them to leave what became known as the "press pen." There they were vulnerable to Trump fans who, both coming in and going out, derided them with a wide variety of vulgarities, suggestive remarks, middle-finger statements and any number of threats---Katie Tur, an NBC reporter, had to exit one of the rallies with a security escort following some particularly disturbing actions directed toward her. During the rallies themselves, Trump would goad the fevered swamp critters who were present to turn around and "tell them [the press in the press pen] what you think of them." Again, they were subjected to a variety of vulgarities, suggestive remarks, middle-finger statements, threats, and objects thrown at them.

For Trump rally-goers, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Which is, of course, exactly the humiliating scenario Trump intended. Because Donald Trump, who is now, incredibly, the sitting president of the United States of America, is all about demeaning and/or humiliating those who disagree with him---this sick puppy believes any dissent or disagreement to be the action of "enemies."

In contrast to Trump's rally-goers, his disgusting demagoguery was, for many of us, beyond disturbing and unlike anything we had ever seen. And far less than any thinking person would hope for from a person seeking the title "Leader of the Free World."

As the press continued to call out Trump for his string of lies, his antipathy toward journalists and media outlets---excepting the Alt-Right platforms previously mentioned---grew more intense and gave birth to another rally-pleasing reference: "The Dishonest Media."

Any story that questioned the veracity of a Trump statement or any disagreement with a Trump policy immediately became a bundle of lies made up by "the dishonest media," a characterization that has now morphed into "the media" being "the country's greatest enemy."

Needless to say, the Founders, all of whom had disagreements large and small with what was, in their time, a very free and very robust press, would be appalled at the constant torrent of animus directed at the press by America's 45th president.

Trump, during a recent, unhinged rally speech in Melbourne, Florida, implied that Thomas Jefferson was in agreement with his view of the press.

Sorry, Donald.

While Jefferson, like most of the other Founders, occasionally expressed frustration with the press, he was, like all of the other Founders, consistent and compelling in his belief that a free and unfettered press was an absolute necessity if governmental power was to be kept in check---"it is necessary," he wrote to Marquis de Lafayette in 1823, "to keep the waters pure."

Indeed, it was Jefferson who penned the single statement that might best describe the collective sentiment of the Founders per a free, unfettered and robust press and its role in protecting not governmental power but people's rights and freedoms. In an 1816 letter addressed to Charles Yancey, he wrote that "where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe."

The Donald's antagonism toward the media ramped up to an entirely new level, however, when, in the week following his inauguration, he began lying about issues related to size.

Trump, who is all about size---crowd size, the size of his business, the size of his election win, the size of his hands, the size of his fingers and the size of his, uh, "Believe me, I don't have any problems there"---was enraged by media reports that the size of the crowd at his inaugural was smaller than the crowds that had attended Barack Obama's two inaugurals. Indeed, he made the incredulous claim, through his hapless press secretary, Sean Spicer, that it "was the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period. Both in person and around the globe."

Despite overwhelming evidentiary facts that showed the crowd size at his inaugural to be significantly smaller than either of Obama's, Trump sent Spicer out to his first press briefing with orders to batter the media, claiming they were deliberately falsifying the size of the crowd. Spicer even joined in the Trump lie-fest, claiming as fact easily debunked "evidence" about camera angles, magnetometer placing, fencing and on and on and on.

It was ridiculous. And pathetic. And filled with lies.

As was Trump's continuing claim that the size of his electoral college win over Hillary Clinton amounted to "a massive landslide victory." It wasn't "massive" and it wasn't a "landslide." Indeed, of all 58 U.S. presidential elections, Trump's electoral college margin of victory ranked only 46th.

But particularly galling to as insecure a man to ever run for---much less win---the presidency was the fact that he lost the popular vote to Secretary Clinton by approximately 2.8 million votes. And when it was noted that the size of the popular vote margin was historic---"Trump's deficit is by far the largest for any candidate who won the Electoral College and lost the popular vote"---he could contain his rage at the "dishonest media" and what his Alt-Right advisor Steve Bannon encouraged him to call "Fake News" no longer.

Meeting with congressional leaders three days after his inauguration, Trump made the astounding claim that he did not actually lose the popular vote to Hillary Clinton.

To which the thinking people of the world replied, in unison, "Huh?"

No, said Trump, "millions of people...voted illegally" and, had it not been for them, he would have easily won the popular vote. He continued his off-the-wall rant by charging that between three and five million votes were cast illegally and that "every one of them voted for Hillary, not one for me."

"Every one of them [three to five million illegal voters] voted for Hillary, not one for me." I don't know: Borderline Personality Disorder with Paranoid Components?

The claim was easily debunked. As of December, four cases of voter fraud had been uncovered. That's four cases of voter fraud out of more than 135 million votes cast. And, irony of ironies, three of the four were Trump voters. The other was charged with changing votes for a mayoral candidate in Florida.

The Washington Post fact-checker gave Trump's claim Four Pinocchios. It could be that it didn't get more because that's as many as they give an exceptionally egregious lie.

Trump, of course, doubled-down on his dishonesty, claiming the "dishonest media" was trying to excuse Hillary Clinton's loss, an argument that is non-sensical at best. But, "Dishonest Donald" continues to repeat the dishonest claim---which he knows to be dishonest.

He and his Pee Wee Herman look-alike advisor, Stephen Miller, also continue to repeat the claim, with zero evidence, that he would have won New Hampshire's popular vote had "voters from Massachusetts" not been "bused to New Hampshire to vote." During an appearance on ABC's This Week on last Sunday, host George Stephanopolous asked Miller three times to provide evidence of such "voter busing." Miller had no evidence because there is no evidence. But he weaseled his way out of that little problem by saying that a Sunday news show was not the proper venue for providing such evidence. In actuality, there is no proper venue for providing evidence that does not exist.

A week later, he has still not provided any evidence to substantiate his claim. But he has managed to anger/alienate thousands of Massachusetts and New Hampshire voters---as well as the Republican establishment in both states, who are furious per his spurious claims.

Kellyanne Conway, of course, was unable to provide evidence about the infamous "Bowling Green Massacre" about which she spoke while smearing immigrants during an interview with Chuck Todd. Because, of course, there was no such thing.

And The Donald was unable to come up with evidence about "what happened in Sweden last night," a reference to an imaginary terrorist attack in Sweden that had taken hold in the fevered swamp of his fevered mind.

And, and, and, and...

And the lies just keep on coming. But they're not coming from a "dishonest media." They're coming from a fundamentally dishonest president---"Dishonest Donald"---and the empty sell-outs who make up his staff.