Silencing the voice of the people

“We the people” are the first three words of the Preamble to the United States Constitution. Although the Preamble is not law, it does provide insight into the intentions of the Founding Fathers in that when a politician or government official takes an oath to the Constitution they answer to the people because, in a democracy at least, the government’s powers come from the people.

But Donald Trump is not concerned with those intentions or those of "we the people” unless it benefits him. His concern is to silence dissent.

Trump’s bête noire is a media outlet that doesn’t kowtow or bootlick. But despite his hatred of independent media, the freedom of the press is still protected under the First Amendment.

In 2017, The Washington Post, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, adopted the profound slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” but shortly before Trump’s second term it also adopted another slogan, “Riveting Storytelling for All of America”.

Was the new slogan added to mitigate the first? Will The Post do what the National Enquirer did and write fascinating helpful lies for Trump and “catch and kill” damaging stories? Will it be his nom de plume?

A free and independent press represents all the people and holding governmental leaders accountable is inherent in a democracy. The press is the vox populi: they ask questions that individual citizens can’t ask and conduct investigating reporting of government officials that citizens can’t necessarily do on their own. The press keeps the people informed of what its government is doing and, equally important, what it’s not doing. 

But Trump and his regime believe they are immune to the press’ scrutiny. For years, Trump has falsely and maliciously lambasted media outlets that didn’t comport with him by smearing, vilifying and slanderously labeling them “the enemy of the people,” thereby manipulating his loyal subjects to despise a free press.

Speaking on Dec. 5, then-Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth looked directly into the camera and without any camouflage displayed his animosity for the press adamantly declaring “I don’t answer to anyone in this group, none of you, not to that camera at all.”

On Feb. 9, Trump issued an executive order renaming the 400-year-old Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The Associated Press, though, continued to use “Gulf of Mexico” in its reporting and in retaliation the White House revoked the organization’s access to Oval Office press conferences. On Feb. 13, during a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated, “It is a privilege to cover this White House…. No one has the right to go into the Oval Office and ask the president of the United States questions. That’s an invitation that is given.”

I concede that no one can walk in the Oval Office or board Air Force One at will, but the message here is clear: Trump doesn’t want a free press. Instead, the press must surrender to him because he is a tyrant and wants to control information. The Gulf of Mexico example is, after all, just a detail of that strategy.

Traditionally, news outlets that closely covered the president were chosen by an independent group. Trump’s White House is deciding who is selected.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said in a statement, “The role of our free press is to hold those in power accountable, not to act as their mouthpiece.”

By confining The AP, an independent not-for-profit news cooperative founded in 1846 that now reaches half the world and is relied on by many news outlets, Trump is helping suppress the flow of information to four billion people.

Days later at a press conference Trump displayed a total disregard for the First Amendment stating, “we’re gonna keep them out until such time as they agree that it’s the Gulf of America”.

In N.Y. Times v U.S., 1971's Pentagon Papers case, the Supreme Court held that the government cannot impose restraints on the media unless it meets the burden of “strict scrutiny” meaning that it must show a “compelling state interest” and prove its actions are justified. There is no compelling interest present that justifies prohibiting the Associated Press from using the name "Gulf of Mexico" and the government cannot restrict journalists from attending Oval Office press conferences simply because it doesn’t like their reporting. 

By circumscribing the content of speech and punishing reporters for disagreeing with him, Trump again violates his oath to uphold the Constitution. It’s clear retaliation for not surrendering to Trump’s objective to control information.

Former CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who as the White House correspondent during Trump’s first term had verbal brawls with Trump, said that media outlets should stand in solidarity until Trump “backs down.” Acknowledging that Trump would then restrict the media to “right-wing hacks to cover his daily decrees,” Acosta added, “Fine, let the American people soak that in — the image of an aspiring autocrat and his servile propagandists.”

Yet, having asserted that the government answers to the people, I am not naive enough to believe that politicians and government leaders have the ethics to actually believe that themselves. The reality is they answer to the lobbyists and constantly scratch the backs of the self-serving billionaire donors with one hand while pick-pocketing middle class Americans with the other.

It is an understatement to say Trump seeks to reign in and corral the free press. He desires state-controlled media, much like dominates in Russia, China and North Korea.

Clearly, this comes with great perils to Americans.

Trump’s agenda is a recipe for dismantling the United States, to destroy its functioning, its integrity and its free press. The Trump regime is a kakistocracy that seeks autocracy mixed with some theocracy surrounded by hypocrisy and built on a frail foundation of idiocracy.

The pen is mightier than the sword. And a free press is the antidote to Trump’s poison.