Comments
GUEST COLUMN--Things Moving Fast Dept. With the firing of racist elf and A.G. Jeff Sessions - and his alarming replacement by Trump's "Roy Cohn" - it's admittedly hard to keep up with the Constitutional crises hovering on our fraught horizon, but key amidst the unraveling was the spectacle of our babbling, vengeful tinpot wannabe berating and abusing reporters at his hallucinatory press conference.
Of course there were many madhouse moments: He proclaimed the mid-terms "a great victory" - we recommend The Toronto Star's Daniel Dale for his on-the-spot fact-checking of the bonkers proceedings - and happily declared, "This is a hot White House. We are a White House that people want to work with.”
He did a gross, petty Walk-of-Shame-cum-The-Godfather routine mocking the uppity GOP losers who rejected his support and "didn't want the embrace," while ignoring all the others who kowtowed to him but lost anyway 'cause they're douchebags. He threatened retribution against House Democrats who have promised to exercise their constitutional duty to exercise oversight of his many executive crimes and misdemeanors, thus confirming he is not just uncommonly corrupt but, in the ever-cogent words of Noam Chomsky, "criminally insane."
Still, his unceasing attacks on the cornerstone of our democracy as "enemies of the people" were still jarring. In swift succession, he accused (black female) PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor of asking a "racist question" about his nationalism; snarled at (also black female) April Ryan to "sit down" when she tried to ask a question; and increasingly feverishly tore into CNN's Jim Acosta for doggedly asking about his too-racist-even-for-Fox-'Our-Middle-Name-Is-Racist'-News anti-immigrant ads, pacing, pointing his stubby little finger, presidentially yelling, "That's enough! That's enough!" and shrieking Acosta was "a rude, terrible person" - big pot/kettle alert - before having a young female toady try to wrestle the mic away. After that brief bedlam, NBC's Peter Alexander offered a mild defense of Acosta. Still, we have to wonder: What will it take for this Press Corps to grow a pair and walk out en masse?
Maybe the stripping, a few hours later, of Acosta's press credentials? "President Trump believes in a free press and expects and welcomes tough questions of him," explained foul mouthpiece Sarah Sanders, who offered a doctored video from Infowars as "evidence," but Mr. Grab 'Em By The Pussy will "never tolerate a reporter placing his hands on a young woman." LOL, said the world.
Acosta fired back with a succinct "This is a lie" and widespread outrage followed. CNN came closest to the grim truth: "This...is a threat to our democracy." Here, we defer to Andrew Gillum - who FYI along with Nelson may be getting a recount - and his grandmother; he quoted her as DeSantis tried too hard to deny his own racism: "A hit dog will holler."
Post mid-terms, having lost a once-complicit House and the once-supportive Rust Belt states, Trump is a cornered dog, hollering at any perceived enemies. Foremost among them is the press, which we need. Given the dangers ahead, we call on Thomas Jefferson: "The only security of all is in a free press ... The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure."
(CityWatch guest columnist, Abby Zimet, writes for Common Dreams … where this piece was first posted.)
-cw