American news media: You are Donald Trump’s bitch*. You are making him what he is. And that makes you something worse yet: You are lab assistants to our modern media Dr. Frankenstein, the man who invented Trump as politician, the man who more than anyone else has divided this nation, Roger Ailes. You, the press, should be exposing Trump’s idiocies for what they are and his demonization of the others — the aliens, the Mexicans, the Jews** (oops, that was someone else) — for the racism that it is. You should be instructing the public in the definition of demagoguery.*** Instead, you fawn.
As Trump’s Iowa pep rally ended a few days ago, this is what you said to America:
"That was amazing… special… pure Trump…. That was a great show" Was that just said by a CNN *journalist*? Huh? WTFUCK?
— Jeff Jarvis (@jeffjarvis) August 22, 2015
You are helping him to turn American democracy into his reality show. You schmucks.
It gets worse, of course. Yesterday in Iowa, Univision’s Jorge Ramos was the one reporter who tried to question Trump about his ridiculous immigration plan to rip citizenship out of the hands of people born here, to deport millions of people without due process, to build a wall around our nation, to rise in the press and the polls on at tide of hatred. Trump had him ejected:
At that moment, why didn’t every reporter in the room stand up and leave? Why didn’t you all at least ask the same question he was blocked from asking? The rest of you in the room: When Ramos was kicked out, did any of you think, “Oh, good, now it’s my turn for camera time”? If Jake Tapper had been shoved out of the room by Trump’s goon, what would you have done? Did any of you agree with Trump: Why don’t you go back to Mexico … er, I mean, Univision?****
And what happens as soon as Ramos is ejected trying to ask the question of this campaign? Another reporter asks about Trump’s feud with Megyn Kelly. Because the show must go on!
Trump did finally deign to allow Ramos to return to ask his questions. I’ll let you judge whether he answered any of them.
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*I tried to think of another way to say this but I couldn’t. Lapdog just doesn’t carry the same oomph.
**I agree with Lauren Weinstein that Godwin’s Law does not apply to Donald Trump. To quote:
Let’s get this straight once and for all: Comparisons between Adolf Hitler and Donald Trump do not invoke Godwin’s Law.
Godwin’s Law applies to discussions where Nazi analogies make no sense. Comparing a strict physical education teacher with Hitler, for example, is an obvious invocation of Godwin’s Law.
However, Godwin’s Law explicitly does not apply when actual Nazi parallels are in play.
In the case of Donald Trump, we have a grandiose buffoon spouting outright lies and hate speech, triggering racial violence, demanding the deportation of eleven million plus people including American citizens, retroactive stripping of citizenship, and attracting crowds who shout “white power” and hand out literature lauding that “Trump will do to the dirty Hispanics what Hitler did to the dirty Jews.”
The parallels are obvious and on-point.
Godwin is not in scope.
Nazism and 1930s Germany very much are.
Q.E.D.
***Leave it to CNN to decide that Trump is not a demagogue. I’d rather listen to Jack Shafer on this point.
****Let us also not forget that after first making his offensive remarks about Mexicans, Univision ended its relationship with Trump, who in turn threatened to sue them. To those who said to me in a discussion about this on Facebook that Ramos was just speaking out of turn, I say let’s not be naive; Trump knew exactly what he was doing. He always does.
I leave you with this image from — to use Ramos’ own word — Trumplandia:
