OK, I’ve pretty much had it with President Trump. With apologies to my Republican friends, who will probably renew their disdain for me after reading this, our president has gone too far.
I’m not talking about our president’s decision to slap tariffs on other countries (even though that is harmful to my business). I’m not talking about his youknow- what contest with Iran. I’m not talking about the Kennedy Center — I couldn’t care less about that.
I’m talking about his unprecedented, what-the-hell-are-you-thinking attempt to blackball media. Last time I checked, government cannot control the press, shouldn’t even try, really. This is literally part of the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Now, I was hardly a scholar when it came to history when I was in high school, but even I know that the First Amendment of the Constitution is meant to protect five of our main freedoms: religion, speech, the press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government.
What am I missing here? I have been in the business of journalism since I was a teenager. It’s all I know, so I take seriously journalists’ right to do what we do. No one should think he or she has the power to take that right away, even someone considered the most powerful man in the world.
We know why Trump is playing the muzzlethe- media game. The organizations he is trying to blackball have a clear leftist stance, and they’re not kind to him — not on TV, not on the radio, not in newspapers and not online.
But he signed up for this, did he not? Tracy council member Jeri Schons said something interesting at last week’s council meeting when the council — which was in Charter Commission mode at the time — was discussing how difficult it has become to get people to run for office. And it is difficult in today’s world. Why would anyone volunteer to deal with criticism, which is more rampant than ever because of social media?
No one is safe, especially the president, and Schons said — I’m paraphrasing here — wearing a target on your back and dodging metaphorical bullets is part of the job. Being in the kitchen means you have to deal with the heat, and our president clearly doesn’t like getting burned. Heck, who does, but why can’t he take it? It can’t be that he’s thin-skinned. This man wouldn’t have gotten where he was in the business world if he was.
Trump plays the fake news card quite often, but he needs to take a look in the mirror when it comes to fake. Has there been a president in our history who has been called out more for inaccuracies? All presidents have been known to hyperbolize every now and again, but Trump … well, trumps them all.
Thankfully, level heads prevailed last week when the three news organizations that were banned from the White House — CNN, MS NOW and Politico — were given a reprieve by a judge. I’m not a big fan of these news organizations, but I am a fan of freedom of the press — even if you don’t like the press in question.
As we near the end of this column, I want to remind Republicans reading this that I am not anti-Republican, per se. I’ve voted for Republican candidates in the past and probably will in the future. However, I now am anti-Trump; there, I admitted it. I used to chide the president for being an egomaniac and a misogynist, but that’s nothing compared to him keeping journalists out of the White House just so he can control the narrative. I can’t give him grace on this one.
It’s called freedom of the press and without it, we crumble.
