A REAL scandal is the one-sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can\u2019t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion? \u2013 Tweet from Donald Trump \u2013 12\/16\/18<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\nSunday, the President of the United States stated that the First Amendment shouldn\u2019t apply to network television. He wants to be able to sue them for defamation (and belittling, though that isn\u2019t a legal cause of action.) And he claims that they are \u201ccolluding,\u201d supposedly with his other opponents, though we know he knows \u201c\u2026collusion is not a crime;\u201d at least that\u2019s what he\u2019s said many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I get it: the President doesn\u2019t like getting laughed at. Saturday Night Live, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and most other network comedians are making their living poking fun at him. It is more than Chevy Chase imitating President Ford falling, or Will Ferrell saying \u201cstrategery\u201d as President Bush. It is relentless, any network, any show; President Trump is the laugh line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it comes with the territory, and with the Constitution of the United States. In 1800, Thomas Jefferson didn\u2019t like the fact the newspapers were making fun of his ongoing affair with slave Sally Hemmings (there was even a song put to the tune of Yankee Doodle about \u201cMonticellian Sally\u201d.) Abraham Lincoln was lampooned as an ape and a buffoon, and those were the Northern newspapers. The world laughed at Lyndon Johnson\u2019s surgery scar, Richard Nixon\u2019s jowls, and Jimmy Carter\u2019s sweater. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But no one since John Adams (the second President) has actually suggested that we should regulate criticism of the President. Adams, notoriously thin-skinned, got Congress to pass the Sedition Act criminalizing \u201cfalse\u201d statements critical of the Federal government. The Supreme Court never had the opportunity to rule on the law, it was allowed to expire when Adams and the Federalists lost control of the government in the election of 1800.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since that time, we have protected the right to criticize the President. And we all expect that protection will continue. We shrug off the Trump tweets as \u201cdog whistles\u201d to his base, without meaning or basis in reality. But, of course, that\u2019s not true. The President conducts his business through Twitter; we learned of the new Chief of Staff, and the banning of transgendered individuals from the military, and the firing of multiple officials through Twitter. He conducts foreign policy there (my button is bigger than yours) so how can we assume he isn\u2019t serious here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Trump Administration has engaged in an ongoing strategy of\u00a0\u00a0\u201csoftening the ground\u201d towards restricting America\u2019s foundations.\u00a0\u00a0The list is inclusive:\u00a0\u00a0the intelligence agencies, law enforcement, the press, citizenship, the First, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, voting; all these rights and institutions have been challenged by the President.\u00a0\u00a0Whether he is successful in those efforts or not isn\u2019t necessarily the goal.\u00a0\u00a0The strategy seems to be to raise questions about all of the long history of American progression, and what is today\u2019s reality.\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s Orwellian; intelligence lies, FBI breaks the law, voters shouldn\u2019t vote; the Ministries of Truth, Love, Peace and Plenty all doing the opposite or their titles.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You hear it from the President\u2019s attorney, Rudy Giuliani, as he tells us the President didn\u2019t do something, but if he did, it wasn\u2019t a crime, and if it was a crime, well he didn\u2019t know it so it wasn\u2019t really a crime. Following that logic\u2026there is no logic here. It simply serves to distract and create confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we now have proof that the President isn\u2019t alone in his strategy.\u00a0\u00a0While we intuitively knew that the Russians were attacking our electoral system, the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s report shows millions of Russian social media interventions in favor of Trump.\u00a0\u00a0They didn\u2019t create issues, but they took them, many brought up by Trump, and echoed and amplified them across the internet.\u00a0And after the election, they turned their sights on the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, undercutting his validity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a strategy to allow for \u201creasonable doubt\u201d about whatever conclusions law enforcement reaches about the President\u2019s conduct.\u00a0\u00a0But it’s even more than that.\u00a0\u00a0This constant undermining of American traditions and values enable an overall Administration strategy of changing America from a pluralistic society of many races, ethnicities, and beliefs, to a white dominated society of a mythical past.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This is about the \u201cshock\u201d that some Americans felt about the changes of the last decade; the first black President, a national understanding that everyone deserves health care, and greater efforts toward universal suffrage.\u00a0\u00a0The Trump Administration MUST knock down the science of global warming and the value of American leadership in the world.\u00a0It\u2019s the only way they can move back to the \u201csimpler time\u201d that guaranteed white control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s their plan of survival. Whatever the law and courts say in response to the Mueller Investigation, if the President\u2019s men can go to the American people and convince them it doesn’t matter, then he has a chance of survival. As we now know more than ever, the Russians will probably chime in to help on social media. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
James Comey, former Director of the FBI, spoke after his second round of Republican hearings.\u00a0Comey is the flawed figure of our era, the man whose judgment is questioned by both Democrats and Republicans.\u00a0Being questioned by both, perhaps he was right.\u00a0\u00a0But he is a man enraged by the faithlessness of the President, the chief of the executive branch, who is attacking his own agency. \u00a0Comey stated: \u00a0\u201cIt undermines the rule of law\u2026it\u2019s about what it means to be an American.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not normal, and it\u2019s not right. We can\u2019t let our values be undermined by the constant pounding of the lies. Soon, we will all be called to stand by our values, or stand with the President. There will be no middle ground. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Softening the Ground A REAL scandal is the one-sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can\u2019t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion? \u2013 Tweet from Donald Trump … Continue reading “Softening the Ground”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSoftening the Ground : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2018\/12\/18\/softening-the-ground\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Softening the Ground : Our America - Essays on Politics and American Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Softening the Ground A REAL scandal is the one-sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. 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