Well, Donald Trump is demonstrating a bit of selective hearing on Wednesday, because in the wake of Matt Lauer’s rather unceremonious ouster from NBC, the President is going to go ahead and pretend like nothing of the “inappropriate” nature has ever happened at Fox News.
Or at least that’s the implication, because just two days after explicitly saying that Fox should be left out of the running for the “fake news trophy”, he’s using the Lauer debacle as an excuse to call for the firing of Comcast and NBC executives:
Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
He’s also calling for a boycott of CNN to counter CNN’s boycott of him:
Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time! https://t.co/8zJ3j7g5el
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017
I’ve very nearly stopped paying attention to these daily attacks on the free press, but in doing so, I’m falling into the same trap I’ve variously suggested that everyone else would eventually fall into. Namely that we are rapidly going down the road to authoritarianism and unfortunately, that’s no longer hyperbole. The President of the United States is now threatening the media so frequently that we’ve become numb to it just like citizens in countries run by authoritarians.
And you know, it’s undeniable now. He’s doing this almost every, single day. And he gets more aggressive and brazen with it all the time. Meanwhile, it seems entirely lost on him that he’s saying these things while promoting Fox News, the poster child for unreliable reporting and a workplace that is at least as chauvinistic as any other and has itself been embroiled in multiple sexual harassment scandals.
Obviously that doesn’t excuse the same behavior at other networks. The point, rather, is that there is not even a hint of objectivity in Trump’s tweets and that would be fine if he left it there. No one is entirely objective least of all us, so we don’t expect that from the President (although we probably should). But he’s actively calling for entire media outlets to be investigated, boycotted, or otherwise neutered and then on top of that, he’s calling for their executives to be fired, all because their coverage of his administration is critical.
Meanwhile, he tweeted out at least three unsubstantiated videos last night just as he maligns “fake news”. These are from Jayda Fransen, deputy leader of the far-right group Britain First who is facing charges of inciting religiously aggravated harassment:
This is so egregious coming from the occupant of the Oval Office that if it had come out of the blue from another President, you can be sure the entire White House staff would be in a frenzy to determine if the commander in chief had temporarily lost control of his faculties. And yet with Trump, it’s just par for the proverbial course.
Even Breitbart realizes that was a bad idea:
Yeah, someone might want to tell whoever is running Trump's Twitter account this morning that retweeting Britain First is not great optics. ?
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 29, 2017
wow. when Paul says you fucked up, you must have really fucked up. https://t.co/roTadh4yu4
— Heisenberg Report (@heisenbergrpt) November 29, 2017
But hey, Jayda is super-excited…
I wonder if his supporters even realize that they have given up all rights to future arguments against any politician regarding morality. I’m sure they don’t, but one day they will so tire of hearing Trump’s name thrown back at them that there will be many articles written about it. And that goes for his “reluctant” supporters, too (I’m looking at you, every single silent GOP’er).