It’s Trump vs. free, unfettered press

LETTERS

Until recently people tended to shrug off Donald Trump’s generally clumsy attacks on the “Fake Media” as an attention-grabbing strategy on the part of a politician who had built his reputation on a game-show program. Many readers and viewers probably followed his oftenconfusing behaviour with a smile on their lips.

However, following his provocative behaviour during the recent NATO conference, and his even more bizarre behaviour during his subsequent summit in Helsinki with Vladimir Putin, some people are beginning to wonder whether his drumbeat of attacks on the media might represent a threat to democracy.

To understand this threat, the reader might wish to consider two 20th-century examples of such attacks. Benito Mussolini saw the free press as a major obstacle standing in the way of Fascist control of Italy.

In speeches, posters and rallies he argued that any reporters opposing Fascist policies were in fact the mouthpieces of Jews and communists. He lashed out against an unbridled press with threats, beatings, imprisonment and assassinations. Ultimately, these measures allowed the Fascist party to seize power in Italy.

Some German extremist saw in Mussolini a way forward for the Nazi party. Some even took to calling Hitler “Germany’s Mussolini.” Hitler attacked the free press with even greater persistence, organization and violence. Thus began the long march towards the death camps.

Following the widespread condemnation of Trump’s behaviour at the Putin Summit, some Republican politicians had the courage to criticize their president. But Trump hit back hard, insisting that the Putin Summit had been a spectacular success, despite the reluctance of the “fake media” to acknowledge it as such. And equally disturbing, Republican politicians who were initially pushing back against Trump’s excesses have come to fear Trump’s control of his base support. Many of the Republican senators and congressmen facing election in November fear they will lose out at the ballot box if Trump targets them.

Perhaps the coming weeks and months will give us a clearer understanding of the resilience of a free and unfettered press.

Robert (Bob) Tarleck

Lethbridge