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The ‘enemy of the American people’ isn’t who the president claims

Media and Trump
(Twitter screenshot from @realDonaldTrump)

In an article earlier this year, I claimed that the media love Trump. Boy, was I wrong.

Sure, the business executives of media corporations love all the increased revenue, but the actual journalists can’t stand the president.

For whatever reason, America’s “tweeter-in-chief” has declared the fake-news media to be an enemy of the state.

The media certainly isn’t against the people; they’re just against Trump. Because Trump acts like a five-year-old every time someone disagrees with him, it’s no wonder he throws a Twitter tantrum every time the media calls him out on his lies.

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Even Chris Wallace of Fox News, one of the only news networks Trump hasn’t called fake yet, believes Trump has crossed the line.

“We can take criticism, but to say we’re the enemy of the American people, it really crosses an important line,” Wallace said. “Barack Obama whined about Fox News all the time, but I got to say, he never said that we were an enemy of the people.”

The irony here is that by accusing any media he disagrees with as an “enemy of the people,” Trump has actually declared himself as the real enemy to the people.

Good ol’ Teddy Roosevelt even went so far as to call such an act treason back in 1918.

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public,” Roosevelt wrote in an editorial.

The people are tired of their enemies, whether their enemies are Trump, the media or both.

Americans have followed their president’s lead and taken to Twitter to address their concerns.

Using the slogan “not the enemy,” journalists and their supporters began posting memorials to reporters who lost their lives covering important stories, arguing that such bravery makes them the real heroes to the American public.

Perhaps the most used comparison is Trump to Richard Nixon.

One Twitter user noted that Nixon referred to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the investigative journalists behind the Watergate Papers, as the enemy. The user noted that things didn’t end well for Nixon, the real enemy to the people.

Trump’s supporters are quick to follow suit with fake news accusations.

You can find them in most comment sections making unsubstantiated claims about anything they disagree with, much like the president.

Trump’s tactful manipulation of his supporters is, honestly, quite impressive.

Once he discredits the media, the only source of true news is whatever Trump tells them.

Case and point: the nonexistent Bowling Green Massacre.

Another example would be Trump’s exaggeration of the crime rate in Sweden in order to justify his immigration ban.

Swedish officials were quick to call out the lies, and now we have Trump trying to delegitimize an entire government.

We’re talking about the same man who once tweeted about an “extremely credible source” that told him Obama’s birth certificate was fake.

It seems Trump has a broken sense of what credibility means.

For every instance that Trump attempts to discredit the media, the media will respond tenfold discrediting Trump.

After all, the media have real facts, while our president just has his alternative ones.

As Nelson Mandela brilliantly stated, “A critical, independent and investigative press is the lifeblood of any democracy. It must enjoy the protection of the constitution, so that it can protect our rights as citizens.”

The media is an ally to the people, and Donald Trump is the enemy of both.

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