The power of real reality
a close adviser to Barack Obama, to The Washington Post. “He thinks he can bully people into cooperation. My experience has been that can drive people further away and make it harder. There are some things that he’s talking about wanting to do that he’s going to need Democratic votes for.”
Here’s another fact: The president cannot fire all those pesky journalists who keep contradicting his penchant for exaggeration and fabrication. True, the president can circumvent the mainstream media by using the TBN, the Trump Broadcasting Network, to deliver messages directly to millions of followers on social media. He can conduct a “running war” with the press corps and demean them as “among the most dishonest human beings on earth.”
But he cannot silence or intimidate them. He cannot stop Chuck Todd of NBC from telling key Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway that “alternative facts” are not facts at all, but “falsehoods.” During their clash on “Meet the Press,” Conway lectured Todd that it’s “not your job ... to call things ridiculous.” But she got it exactly wrong. It’s the job of every journalist to hold the powerful accountable for their ill-starred statements and actions -- especially the president.
The president cannot silence the satirists, either. “Saturday Night Live” is not “The Apprentice.” Even the commander in chief could not stop a shirtless Vladimir Putin from saying to Trump on last week’s “SNL” broadcast, “If you’re going to lie, don’t be so obvious.”
Trump is still learning the difference between campaigning and governing. He won the presidency by generating enormous enthusiasm and devotion among his core supporters. He took 41 percent of the vote in the Republican primaries, but that was sufficient to triumph over a weak and fragmented field.
He won only 46 percent of the vote in the general election, but again, that was good enough to beat a Democratic opponent who failed to elicit anything like the passion and purpose that marked the Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration.
The new president was absolutely correct when he tweeted during the march, “Why didn’t these people vote?” If they had all voted -- and advocated and organized -- the outcome last November might well have been different.
Still, the demonstrations were deeply meaningful. For every voter who wears a red hat saying “Make America Great Again,” there is another American wearing a pink one that says, in effect, “Where is my place in Donald Trump’s America?”
Yet Trump continues to stay locked in campaign mode. His inaugural speech appealed only to red hats, not pink hats; to division, not unity. There were no gestures of reconciliation, no attempts to alleviate the anxiety and fear that prompted so many citizens to take to the streets in protest.
“There is no question that Trump has exacerbated the divisions that already existed in the United States, on important issues from national security to civil rights to climate change,” Wendy Schiller, a political scientist at Brown University, told Reuters. “Dividing the country is a recipe for winning elections, but it is not a recipe for successful government.”
The new president cannot fire his critics. He cannot fix problems by proclaiming “alternative facts.” He cannot create his own reality. He has to face real reality now. Steve and Cokie Roberts can be contacted by email at stevecokie@gmail.com.