This article is not for those of you who are part of the 36% that are still loyal to
President Trump, and actually believe that he is doing a good job. We know there is nothing
that we can do to change your mind, and as he once said, he could shoot someone on 5th
Avenue in plain sight, and those of you would still be his loyal followers.
So many of us, the other 64%, have tried to analyze your blind loyalty. Some have
opined that he is the voice of the common man and no one has spoke to you before like he
does. Others have come up with the idea that he is not establishment, and that makes him
attractive to you. Still many believe that your fidelity to him is due to his brashness and his
ability to say whatever he feels like saying and not caring what the so called “Washington
Elite” have to say about it. Possibly all of these theories are right and maybe it’s the
combination of all of them together.
We, however, analyze it a little differently. We view you all the way history has
viewed purchasers of various products throughout modern times. Those who bought the
Ford Edsel had two choices. They could either acknowledge that they bought a lemon of a
vehicle, or defend it in the face of criticism or mockery. Many chose the defense of a car that
has gone into historical oblivion. There are those, to this day, that contend that the Beta
format was much better than VHS. They kept their Beta systems until only VHS tapes could
be bought and played. Who could forget the loyalty to the MP3 players as the ipod
swallowed up the market. Again, the MP3 player system was a better choice until its death.
Then there are those, to this day, who will not budge from the idea that wrestling such
as WWE or formerly WWF, is real and the better wrestler wins. The Flat Earth Society still
has members in the face of pictures from space showing the true shape of the planet on which
we live. And of course there are dog lovers who never will believe that some breeds are
inherently more dangerous than others, even in light of the 2 year old being chewed up in an
unprovoked attack.
What these people all have in common is that they have latched on to a product, an
idea, a concept or a cause, and changing their minds would be an acknowledgment of faulty
decisions and analysis. Defending it to the end means never having to say to themselves, as
well as others, I was wrong.
So to the rest of you, what is occurring with this administration and what we are
finding out about this administration shows the importance and the need for the First
Amendment and the Freedom of the Press. But for a press that can investigate, without fear
of being locked up and never seeing the light of day, we would know nothing about this
administration that likes to conduct its business in secrecy. But for a dogged press, just in
the month of July, 2017, we would not know of the meetings between Donald, Jr., Paul
Manafort and Jared Kushner and a host of Russian operatives. Without the press we would
not know about the hour long conversation between Putin and Trump at the GC20 Summit.
There are so many more things that our press has revealed to us since Donald J.
Trump was elected to be President of the United States. They actually are too numerous to
count, as every day brings another revelation. One can only imagine what this administration
would be doing without a vibrant press shadowing their every move and calling them to task
for the constant misstatements and never ending lies.
Our President likes to call them the phony press and the product they put out is fake
news. These are his only weapons, because of the First Amendment that protects Freedom
of the Press. Without the First Amendment, one could only imagine what this man, who
publicly says it’s an honor to meet Vladimir Putin, who has killed off opposition, including
the Russian press. Our President has turned a blind eye to the democracies that we are
closely aligned with, and goes out of his way to applaud the actions of the Philippines
Duterte and China’s Xi, the former, who brags about killing suspected drug dealers without
trials, and the latter, who is slowly taking away democracy and freedoms from Hong Kong.
In our lifetime we have not seen a president, and our lifetime starts with Dwight D.
Eisenhower, who believes, as Donald Trump does, that being elected to the Presidency is
akin to a coronation of a king or the installation of a dictator. Our Founding Fathers, with
all their flaws, also had brilliance. There was no internet, there was no radio or television,
there was no Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. To them, the press was a single piece of paper
being nailed to a tree. Yet, they knew that without that publisher of that piece of paper,
freedom could not reign and tyranny would raise its ugly head. They knew that a watchdog
in power was necessary so that power would not go unfettered. They made the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution to contain Freedom of Speech and Freedom
of the Press. They knew the future better than we choose to know the past.
So again to those of you who are in that 36%, we do not expect you to look at the
press and the First Amendment in the same light as we do. Rather, to you right now it is a
thorn in the side of your champion. To the rest of us, we must stand by our press. We must
stand by the First Amendment. We must stand by the Freedom not only of the press, but of
what the press does for our freedoms. The First Amendment has endured since 1791, and
because it endures, so does our freedom and democracy.