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The [Freedom of the Press] Will Not Be Abridged
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Are you incapable of reading my posts, or are you ignoring what I'm typing because you want to be confrontational? Maybe you're just missing it because the text is so small and you are on your phone.
Here, let me help:
That's your entire argument? It's completely ignoring the context of Trump being heated with the press here, which you've evading.
Yeah, your right - I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you about that. However, you're nitpicking minor stuff and missing the bigger picture.
If you can't even bother to actually read the posts before responding I'm unsure how I'm supposed to have a discussion with you.
I'm not evading anything and I'm not ignoring any context. I've clearly stated that Trump calling the media an "enemy of the American people" is both unprecedented but not on the same scale as Putin's control of the media (as argued by another poster ignoring the actual context of Putin's power). I've clearly stated that it is not unprecedented for an adversarial or non cooperative relationship between the POTUS and the press to exist.
As far as I can tell from this:
Nitpicking minor stuff = asking people to actually address what other posters are arguing, and defending said argument while acknowledging what is actually unprecedented
Missing the bigger picture = finding an excuse to claim Trump is literally minutes away from establishing the Fourth Reich beginning with mass executions of the media
Yes, most of the news media almost certainly do not like Trump. But while any news network/paper/organization is far from perfect, but they haven't been running a smear campaign on him. While they don't like him, covering him because how-I'll be exceeding polite and say-"unique" his first few weeks in office, is just smart reporting. It's something that lots of people care really passionately about. And the White House wouldn't be looking so bad on most mainstream media sources if they'd stop being total dumbasses and making petty, trivial lies to people who will always be able to figure out you're lying. (Often instantaneously.)
Like yes, all White Houses are sometimes deceptive but Trump's has been on a whole 'nother level. And when you're reporting on dumb lies that you are obligated to point out are untrue it's real hard to not make the people repeating those lies ad hominem look bad.
edit:
Also no Trump is not as bad as Putin. But that is such a laughably low bar that it's dumb to bring it up. Either arguing for or against. Yes Trump (or more likely his team) want to create information bubbles they can control for their supporters, but that's not exactly the same as Putin who will straight murder folks who say inconvenient facts. But also I'm not going to give any leader credit for just "Not killing reporters."
Maybe we're over reacting, maybe. But do you honestly believe Trump's relationship with the press and how he's governed is normal by any standard in the western world? Do you think he is acting like an average president?
Sorry, I'll tone myself down. Didn't mean to risk the three getting locked again.
The argument began literally with this:
This is a direct comparison between what Trump is doing, including calling the press the enemy, and what Nixon was doing. And saying it's not unusual.
But it is unusual. Nixonian things are not usual or good.
Trump and his administration openly and repeatedly calling the press the enemy is really dangerous and not normal and only different from what Nixon did in that Nixon was smart enough to know you don't say that shit in public instead of just in private.
This most recent move is not unexpected from Trump though as he views any challenge to his authority (which he believes to be absolute) as treasonous and that those who do it are the enemy and that they must be crushed. And so he's resorting to attempts to purge the media as best as he can from his position by locking them out and continuing to delegitimize them to his followers. This shit is dangerous as hell. And stupid too, but that's besides the point.
And again, Trump is incapable of learning or backing down. He can't help himself. I'm calling it now: this dust-up is going to lead to some beyond the pale shit. I'm talking attempts at getting legislation out there allowing Trump to sue the media for saying things that are true about him. Fuckery like that.
No, it's not. It literally says "Nixon hated the press and the press hated Nixon", and that said relationship is not unprecedented. It does not say "Trump says the press is the enemy of the American people, and so did Nixon so that's normal".
In every single post I've acknowledged that Trumps specific action (saying that the press is the enemy of the American people) is unprecedented, but that a non cooperative or adversarial relationship is not unprecedented.
RE the use of the word "purge" is extremely disingenuous. Purging the media would be murdering or imprisoning journalists who say things Trump doesn't like. Attempting to delegitimize them by saying they aren't legitimate is not "purging".
Trump has been here a month. Putin has had 18 years. Russian press, in 1999, wasn't what it is today. There was privately owned media and they had (relative to now, and prior to the collapse of the USSR) a fairly wide array of perspectives.
However, Putin and his people made it clear even before he came into power, that making dissenting press the enemy was a priority, and that they would refute any story critical of them and label opposition enemies, pointing to oligarchical control, much like you see with people bitching about "MSM" in regards to US media.
Trump isn't as bad as Putin because he hasn't had the time.
Trump is following Putins framework verbatim, even to the point of labeling any "fake news" as also "failing", likely because what led to Russia effectively only having state controlled media, is the collapse of the privately held outlets, through one mean or another.
But the whole "fake news", "enemies of the people", the limiting of access to outlets who only praise you and demonizing those who don't and working to crush them to make an dissenting voice disappear, yeah...checking off those boxes.
The benefit we have, here, is that the US isn't post soviet Russia. For all of our problems we actually do have a functioning government at pretty much every level, and a functioning press, regardless of the plethora of problems with both. We also have the good fortune to have the internet and means of accessing information and communication that didn't exist when Putin came into power, and a framework within the government to stop things like this before they can get that bad.
So no, Trump isn't as bad as Putin.
But Trump wants to be as bad as Putin, and he is following Putins actions almost word for word in order to achieve that goal. We just have a chance to stop it, and that is entirely because of outlets like the ones barred from the White House today.
It is our job to do what we can to make sure those outlets aren't bearing the weight of saving a country on their own, and make it clear both to our representatives, by financially supporting those media sites, and by making voices heard in other ways.
There is kind of an irony to this, I think. There has been a whole lot of noise in the past some years about people throwing things on facebook and thinking getting likes is the same as activism. And, generally, the criticism is valid. However, this? Yeah, the act of sharing information is the best, and possibly only, way to protest. Basically, we've been waiting for this for years, the ability to change the world by bitching on social media! Because no matter how much Trump wants to silence media that doesn't like him, information is impossible to stop now. We don't rely on newspapers to get information anymore, but we can at least do what we can to make sure that journalists aren't left to the animals, by making sure their work gets shared.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Distinction with very little difference.
Either way no one important is listening to them.
If at the end of the day, and the end of the voter disenfranchisement efforts soon to take place, the folks in the franchised electorate will not listen to anything but the media houses Trump okays then yes it is purging. It's just purging without having to get your hands dirty.
End goal is the same, the means of attaining it are different.
Edit: the end goal is still terrible even if the means used is slightly less messy.
Fine. That part has precedent. It has happened at least once before, and so you are technically correct.
Can we move on, please?
Can you explain how he's undermining the freedom of the press in that context? My understanding is that his administration went to the FBI and told them to denounce supposedly FBI-originated reports of communication between Russia and Trump's campaign. That violates the rules between the White House and the FBI/DOJ in regards to interfering with ongoing investigations, and a very good argument can be made for obstruction of justice. It's unethical, immoral, and assuming that they know the reports are true, suborning a lie, but that's not the same as attacking their ability to report and publish on it.
As has been said on this forum many times, Freedom of Speech allows people to say what they want to say, but does not protect them from any backlash from those remarks. If someone says something that offends a group of people, then they can expect non-illegal backlash from that group of people. Chick-Fil-A being an example.
Same thing with Freedom of Press. The Press is allowed to report on and have opinions on whatever they want, this does not protect them from non-illegal backlash from groups or people that end up disliking it. People may stop buying your papers or watching your channel. The President may stop talking to you.
Now obviously the President should be above this and should be able to take criticism and welcome transparency. But clearly Trump is a man baby.
This does not mean he is destroying the freedom of the press. Now if he made it illegal to report things about him, then we can talk, imo.
They're using the story as justification to shut out media access and potentially more:
quote from Preibus from CNN
Calling the NYT "treasonous" is implicitly attacking their ability to report on information, and hints at worse to come than just rhetoric.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Not sure that it is:
an abrupt or violent removal of a group of people.
"the savagery of government's political purges"
synonyms: removal, expulsion, ejection, exclusion, eviction, clearance, clear-out, discharge, dismissal, sacking, ousting, deposition, eradication, rooting out, weeding out;
attempting to circumscribe a purge as only murdering or imprisoning persons is quite disingenuous.
"I think I can comment on this because I used to live above the Baby Doll Lounge, a topless bar that was once frequented by bikers in lower Manhattan."
You're welcome.
Please don't cock it up.
That goes back to defamation and credibility (at least among the population that takes Trump at his word), not their freedom to investigate and/or publish that or any other story.
In my opinion, selecting some news outlets to purposefully tear down and delegitimize as fake, going so far as to exclude them specifically from press events and call them enemies of the country, is absolutely chilling on the freedom of the press. It's a precursor to more serious actions of censorship.
Keep in mind also the latest attacks are specific towards outlets that use unnamed sources. The press being able to use unnamed sources is vital to their ability to report on a myriad of issues, but especially to report on government issues and especially to report on this particular absolutely un transparent administration. Trump would like nothing more than to force the press to reveal any and all of their sources, and I suspect soon we will see just that attempted through lawsuit or otherwise.
Nah just attempting to make people reporting uncomfortable, yet verifiable, facts seem like outright liars, and criminals.
Nothing wrong there at all.
But yeah, the best case scenario for this war in the press is that they finally get over their courtier instincts and dust off their much neglected investigative journalism degrees. There have been some promising signs, but I still remain skeptical. Just because they're doing better doesn't necessarily mean that they're doing good. And just because they're the enemy of the administration, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're our friend. Acknowledge when they do something right, but still call them out for repeating the same old mistakes. Taking about giving them props, does anyone have a link to that story yesterday about how the administration tried to get intelligence agents (and maybe Congress people) to 'leak' some disinformation, but not a single outlet ran with it? Honestly, that sounds too good to be true, but I want to belive.(Suprisingly, iirc it was an actual media outlet article, and not politico gossip rags)
It's at the top of WaPo right now, are you saying CNN, MSNBC et al didn't run stories on it? I don't have cable so...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-sought-to-enlist-intelligence-officials-key-lawmakers-to-counter-russia-stories/2017/02/24/c8487552-fa99-11e6-be05-1a3817ac21a5_story.html
NNID: Hakkekage
That's way closer than I'd like. But it's still very, very early in this presidency. We're still technically in the honeymoon period.
Note that that 40/41 is actually below but within error of his last approval numbers from PPP, at 43. There's no room for growth here, for Trump. No one believes him that doesn't already support him.
Bonus hit;
This is all going to blow up in their faces rather spectacularly. For all of our faults, America is not Russia, and we're definitely not Russia circa 2000. We may not love our own press, but we really don't like anyone bullying them.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Really can't wait for the tell all books about the Trump administrations decision making process.
That the regime is now going after the 'liberal' media must indicate that Bannon is already through with his conservative media purges, or is certain that they will be completed on their own. That only took a month. I hope the rest of the press continues to have more spine and guts in them because they will need it.
You're supposed to threaten its removal, not actually do it!
PSN: ShogunGunshow
Origin: ShogunGunshow
The best part of that is that, short of actually physically eliminating the press, removing them from the carefully-designed press conferences doesn't do a hell of a lot to them anyway.
Turns out if you threaten to deny the press access to the government, and they call your bluff, and you proceed to do so - they're still going to be more or less exactly as capable of doing their usual jobs as they would be otherwise.
(Possibly even moreso, since the temptation to simply repeat/summarize pressers - the administration's goal - has been removed, so they have to do more legwork.)
"Never make a threat you're not willing to carry out" is the conventional wisdom.
MWO: Adamski
- The media has mangled its legitimacy amongst conservatives, and had the remains maligned and desecrated by the alt-right some time ago. There wasn't much "delegitimizing" left to do - I haven't read news from any major outlet for at least a decade without a large dose of skepticism, and frequently found myself actually yelling at NPR morning radio in frustration. What we're seeing isn't a new development, it's a combination of reaping what they've sowed and act three of intentionally discrediting the major outlets. That they're so bold isn't shocking... it's the natural progression for a group of people who have felt this was true for all their political lives. Recall that even Breitbart didn't start out an alt-right racist hotbed of fakery and nonsense... it started out as a sharp-elbowed, snarky, right-leaning attempt to compete with HuffPo and prove that conservatives actually could do internet media. Remember when everybody believed that the rightwing was bad at internet? It's only after Andrew Breitbart's death that Bannon and the alt-right transformed it into the beast you see today.
Anyway, my point is that this isn't a shocking twist to me, though it's a dire situation.
- There's no Constitutional ground on which to oppose this. Freedom of the Press does not grant the representatives of specific corporations automatic, irrevocable, or Constitutionally protected special access to specific government officials. The Press has not had any freedom abridged - some press outlets have had one access vector removed. While this is clearly bad for the nation and clearly an authoritarian move by the President to strongarm the major outlets into being less antagonistic, it's not illegal and it's not unconstitutional. Arguments that this is a harbinger of more dramatic attacks on the media run the risk of falling victim to slippery slope criticisms, and people making them should keep that in mind and argue accordingly. Y'all know I believe Volokh's defense of the slippery slope is correct but even he believes you need to be able to connect the dots and show a trend before it's a legit concern.
- The President tweets to distract.
- The President Tweets To Distract.
- The President's twitter attacks on media legitimacy are not just red meat for the base, they are battlespace preparation; they're cover for when the deeper scandal shit starts hitting the fan. Preparing the media battlespace is an idea that's been talked about in right-leaning internet media circles for years and years. Focus on the facts and don't try to argue legitimacy. Even the National Enquirer can sink a politician's career forever, if they are speaking the truth.
- Authoritarian moves like this scare the hell out of me, and they're a huge embarrassment worldwide. I never gave much of a shit about The World's Opinion of GWB for various offtopic reasons, but when motherfucking China is mocking you for the way you treat the media something has gone Very Badly Wrong.
Considering all the lies and non facts in the pressers, blocking major outlets from a gaggle is more akin to stopping the flow of poisonous food.
I also have my suspicions that the gaggle was to establish some sort of comprehensive media strategy between Spicer / Bannon and the alt-right media, without it going through some sort of channel where it could be leaked or subject to a FOIA request
MWO: Adamski
Even when they let the press in, they barely let any non-right publications ask any questions.
Also, usually the press secretary is savvy enough to basically not answer any questions hat could be harmful to the President, though Spicer is bad at that.
This is worth remembering as well, from the writer of House of Cards:
The point is that it was called not unusual to have such a hostile relation between the press and president, but it is unusual. It is not unprecedented, but the president killing someone in a duel isn't unprecedented either, doesn't make it usual.
also, the only reason to make such a comparison is to draw the inference that it is thus not (or less) bad. Trump does bad thing -> So did Nixon -> therefore not so bad. If we are not to conclude that it is less bad, then the statement is just a pointless one, affecting nothing and being only of historical interest.
Setting a precedent is defining something for future policy. An unprecedented occurrence is an occurrence that falls squarely outside current precedent.
That occurrence doesn't have to be unique, it may have happened before and at that time didn't set a new precedent or policy didn't change to deal with it (good or bad)
Unprecedented = something that falls outside current policy