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The only safe position for the opposition is to assume that every Trump gambit, no matter how seemingly spontaneous, fits a larger, nefarious purpose.

During Donald Trumps improbable and inflammatory rise to the presidency, a truism emerged to explain the polar reactions to him: The media takes Trump literally but not seriously, and his supporters take him seriously but not literally.

What this bon mot meant was that journalists made far too much of Trumps promises to build a wall, ban Muslims, erect trade barriers, destroy Obamacare and so forth, while Trumps electoral fan base never believed in all details but did see the candidate as a serious figure rather than the demagogic, incoherent clown of liberals scorn.

>> Trump excludes Muslim immigrants and expunges Jews from memory | Analysis <<

Barely one week into the Trump regime, we now know both sides were right, and American democracy is imperiled as a result. Yes, behind all the scattershot Tweets and egotistical sputtering, Trump has a consistent, long-held white-nationalist ideology. And, yes, he was telling the detailed truth about all of his bigoted and benighted policies.

It has taken only nine days of the Trump presidency to see that we are in the dawn of a dictatorship. One of his first executive orders pushed forward a $25-billion plan to build a wall along the Mexican border. Another slammed shut Americas golden door on refugees from the Syrian civil war and both immigrants and already-approved resident aliens from seven majority-Muslim countries. That measure also gave explicit preference to Christians, a religious test for admission that has never existed in American history.

Our nation knows by now that it was a fantasy to have expected the Republican Party to act as any kind of brake on the extremism of Trump and his personal Goebbels, Steve Bannon. Well before Trump even took office, all but a handful of Republican senators and representatives had proven themselves gutless wonders. The primary-election opponents he mocked and subjected to conspiracy theories Little Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, son of that supposed participant in the JFK assassination endorsed their bullying tormentor.

>> Shame on you, Jared Kushner | Opinion <<

Now the Republican majority in Congress is palpably salivating at Trumps signature on the partys longstanding agenda of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and shredding of the social safety net for the poor and working-class. Trump will also give Republicans a Supreme Court nominee or two, which could reverse the Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion rights and the Obergell cases decision allowing same-sex marriage.

So it comes as no surprise whatsoever that House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence could all so readily contradict their own previously stated positions against a ban on Muslim immigration once Trump issued a Steve Bannon-authored executive order doing essentially that.

The Republican Jewish Coalition, no doubt delirious over Trumps instant alliance with Benjamin Netanyahu in support of the settlement enterprise and confrontation with Iran, has gone similarly mute. When Sheldon Adelson has an aisle seat on the presidential platform for the inauguration, you know all you need to know.

And you would never guess that the same Reince Priebus now trying to finesse the offensive and instantly controversial Muslim ban is the same person who, in the wake of Mitt Romneys 2012 defeat to Barack Obama, authorized an internal Republican Party study on the need to reach out to nonwhite voters lest the GOP continue to lose presidential elections as America becomes an increasingly young, brown, black, yellow and urban nation.

With the expedient exceptions of a few Republican representatives in swing districts and the more principled example of senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, mavericks who are even more liberated by likely being in their final terms, Republican office-holders have fallen into obedient line.

They live in greater fear of Trumps alt-right base, which is disproportionately powerful in low-turnout primary elections, than of destroying the American values of religious freedom and openness to immigrants. Those are not Democratic Party values, mind you, but American values; Ronald Reagan, nobodys idea of a left-winger, signed amnesty for undocumented immigrants and welcomed refugees.

So if one mistake for those of us in the resistance is to expect an iota of integrity from Republicans in Congress then a second is to believe that even the best investigative reporting will change the minds of Trumps hard core those 36 to 40 percent of Americans who approved of him in recent polls. Thanks to decades of efforts by right-wing Republicans to delegitimize reported, factual news as partisan bias, efforts that began with Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew in the late 1960s, a substantial share of the citizenry cannot be persuaded by truth if it contravenes predisposition.

At best, some of Trumps voters will change their mind only after experiencing his unkept promises first hand when the revival of coal mines and auto plants doesnt happen, when trade wars kill jobs dependent on the import-export economy, when working-class whites lose their Obamacare coverage in favor of a wholly insufficient tax credit, if even that. Trumps base must suffer before it learns.

And the third mistake for moderates and liberals is to put faith in a vision of Trump as impetuous, inconsistent, and disorganized, a contraption ticking down to self-destruction. May it be so. But in the meantime, the only safe position for the opposition is to assume that every Trump gambit, now matter how seemingly spontaneous, fits a larger, nefarious purpose.

Those complete falsehoods about millions of illegal immigrants having voted for Hillary Clinton? Trumps announced investigation into nonexistent ballot fraud is the ideal way to keep Republican momentum for voter-suppression laws. Sending out his flacks Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway to repeat presidential lies to incredulous reporters? Those moments provide the perfect video clip for the Breitbart, Drudge, and Fox audiences, which see not Spicer and Conway but the mainstream media being humiliated in the encounters.

As has already become apparent with the Muslim ban, the future of the republic rests with the courts, or at least it does until the 2018 and 2020 elections. Judges in New York, Seattle, Boston, and northern Virginia all issued restraining orders against portions of the executive order.

Surely, the Trump regime will counter-sue, and its hardly unreasonable to expect a resulting case to reach the Supreme Court. However conservative half the high courts current judges are, they are also lifetime appointees, free to actually decide on the basis of conscience and the Constitution.

And should Trump lose at the Supreme Court, then every sensate American will be waiting in trepidation to see whether his reaction is capitulation or a coup.

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Dawn of the Dictatorship: Trump Wastes No Time Imperiling American Democracy - Haaretz

There is a new incumbent in the White House, a new Congress has been sworn in, and scientists around the country are nervous as hell.

Were nervous because there seems to be a seismic shift going on in Washington, D.C., and its relationship with facts, scientific reality and objective truth has never been more strained.

Already, in the opening days of his administration, Donald Trumps press secretary, Sean Spicer, willfully ignored clear, empirical evidence about the size of the inauguration crowds, and bristled at the suggestion experts said they were smaller than in years past. He seemed almost paranoid and insinuated that a media conspiracy rather than simple arithmetic was trying to embarrass his boss. And the Trump administration continues to claim, without any evidence, that widespread voter fraud cost Trump the popular vote, even though this has been thoroughly debunked by numerous, bipartisan sources including his own lawyers.

Even more bizarrely, Kellyanne Conway, a senior advisor to Trump, has offered up the notion that alternative facts, rather than actual truth, were in play now. I dont know what alternative facts are, but I think my parents generation would have called them falsehoods or even lies.

But its not just absence of facts thats troubling, it is the apparent effort to derail science and the pursuit of facts themselves.

Already, we have learned that multiple agencies, including the USDA and the EPA, have ordered their scientists to stop speaking to the public about their research. The CDC suddenly cancelled a long-planned, international conference on the health impacts of climate change. And when the Badlands National Park started using its Twitter account to discuss the issue of climate change as any nature center, park or science museum might do the tweets were immediately deleted. Most disturbingly, the EPA has immediately suspended all of their grants and contracts, and ordered the review of all scientific work by political appointees, including efforts to collect data, conduct research and share information with the broader public a public, we should remember, that paid for the work in the first place.

And its only been a week since Trump took office.

A disturbing pattern seems to be emerging. Facts, and the pursuit of facts, dont seem to matter to this White House. Or, worse yet, they matter a lot and are being suppressed.

Fact checking the Trump campaign was always a surreal exercise, but we all knew that he came from the world of entertainment, and that shoot-from-the-hip, I-say-what-I-think style was part of his charm, part of his brand. People fed up with regular politicians loved his brash style. It was refreshing to many.

But now that Trump is in power, this is no longer about ratings and entertaining television. Its about ensuring the fundamental legitimacy and credibility of the worlds most powerful office. If we cant trust the facts being discussed in the White House, what can we trust?

Ultimately, a healthy democracy depends on science. The pursuit of truth, having an informed citizenry, and the free and open exchange of ideas are all cornerstones of our democracy. Thats one thing that always made America truly great: The fact that, when all is said and done, evidence and the truth would always win the day in America. Without that, we join the league of ordinary nations.

And even if you arent worried about factual evidence, the veracity of our leaders or the independence of science from political interference, I would urge you to look a little farther down the slippery slope. If facts dont matter to the White House, especially when theyre inconvenient, whats next? Laws?

Let me be clear: This isnt a partisan thing. Scientists arent and shouldnt be worried about which political party is in power. It rarely mattered: There has always been a long tradition of bipartisan support for science and a fact-based world view. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has ranked both Republican and Democratic presidents as being exceptional supporters of science, ranging from Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush.

Wise leaders of both parties have always recognized the value of independent science to our democracy.

But theres something different about this administration. Something troubling. And scientists need to stand up and call it out. While we generally avoid political conversations, scientists should always stand up for facts, objectivity and the independence of science itself. Not doing so would be almost unethical.

So, to Trump, I would say this:

If this is all just a series of missteps, caused by over-zealous mid-level managers during a confusing presidential transition, so be it. Say so. Fix it. Get out on the public stage and affirm your commitment to facts, to truth and to the independent pursuit of science without political interference. The vast majority of your fellow Americans would applaud you for this. It would be brave. It would be wise. And it would show some class.

But if this is actually part of your governing philosophy, I would give you a warning on behalf of my fellow scientists: Do not mess with us. Do not try to bury the truth. Do not interfere with the free and open pursuit of science. You do so at your peril.

Americans dont look kindly on bullies, people who try to suppress the truth or people who try to intimidate scientists and the press. In the long run, this always backfires. The dustbin of history is full of people who have tried, and failed. You will too.

The next time you visit the CIA headquarters, I hope you will take a moment to notice their unofficial motto, etched in the walls of the lobby. It says, And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. (John VIII-XXXII.)

It does. And scientists like me, and Americans of all backgrounds, will always fight for it.

Read more here:
The war on facts is a war on democracy: Scientific community has a warning for President Trump - Salon

West Africa - from dictators' club to upholder of democracy BBC News Former Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh failed to appreciate that democracy had taken root in West Africa. It left him on a hiding to nothing once he lost elections, writes Elizabeth Ohene. If proof were needed that the political atmosphere had changed in ... and more »

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West Africa - from dictators' club to upholder of democracy - BBC News

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer holds the daily press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, January 23, 2017 in Washington, DC. ( Chip Somodevilla / GETTY IMAGES )

By Robin V. Sears

Sun., Jan. 29, 2017

Tyrants always respect and fear an independent media, often more than journalisms ordinary readers. They understand its power to reveal their agendas, to mock their follies, and to delegitimize them. Thats why they do their best to demonize and marginalize journalists. From Mussolini to Chavez to Putin and Erdogan, it is a tactic proven successful at least in the short term for tyrants everywhere. Trump has clearly been a student.

His bullying and legal threats to serious journalists did cast a chill on many news organizations. Combined with the huge audiences he delivered to them, in straightened economic times, it made being relentless about a congenital liar difficult.

But the media are one of the three essential guardians of a modern democracy, the others being the judiciary and the military. When the executive branch has control of the legislature and twists it away from democratic practice, judges have often stepped in. This seems a dim hope with this paralyzed conservative Supreme Court.

Military intervention is a nuclear option in a democracy, usually ending in tears. When the revered Israeli military leadership are now quietly discussing moving against the increasingly erratic and unstable Bibi Netanyahu as Israeli media report they have been doing you know that democracy is at risk. One hopes the mere threat of their intervention will impose some discipline on that increasingly isolated and nasty government.

That leaves the media as the sole practical guardians of American democracy. It is a role that many have demonstrated considerable public angst about playing. News organizations from right to left have conducted endless public hand wringing about balance, partisanship and their reputations.

The boundaries between that noble role and bias is surely a very bright line.

If as a journalist you have evidence of misconduct, of bald-faced lying, of policies inimical to agreed American self-interest, you report it. You ensure your sources are bullet-proof, you seek out respected endorsers for your findings. But you report it even if the Trump regime gets advertisers, subscribers and viewers to threaten to walk. A tactic you may be sure they will use.

Tyranny sometimes arrives on quieter feet than burning down the Reichstag. But it always requires threatening and bullying an independent media into submission. Sometimes it is brutal in its repression, but often it succeeds by changing the channel constantly. Introducing irrelevant news stories in response to attack, or staging corny photo ops. Tyrants always use a compliant media to denigrate opponents with phony stories. Like Pravda, in Putins good old days, house organs like Fox and Breitbart have used those tactics with devastating effect.

The institutions of American democracy are marvelously resilient as they have demonstrated for two centuries. They successfully resist attempts to undermine them from the pushback on FDRs attempt to pack the Supreme Court, to Senators successful denunciation of Joe McCarthys witchhunt, to Watergate. Court-packing, witchhunts and genuine abuses of power may soon be back. Key to defeating them is a fearless press not one diverted into nonsense, or bullied into silence.

It is a foolish clich to cite the unpopularity of the media. Lawyers, cops and politicians dont rank much higher. Yet few of us do not cheer when any of them successfully defend justice and defeat the bad guys. When tyrants try to drive the medias reputation down even further its important not to dismiss it, or worse quietly snicker. Failing to smack back at Trumps media taunts is at some point to fail to defend the republic.

If 20-plus million American are suddenly flung out of the health-care system, it will be powerful stories in the New York Times long, expensively produced, eloquently written stories - that will reveal the pain and suffering, forensically documenting this regimes fundamental incompetence to govern. If a witchhunt is launched against opponents, former candidates, and minority communities it will be CNN cameras that will capture the defiance of activists surrounded by SWAT teams, and the night-time raids on immigrant families.

It is not yet clear whether Americans are heading toward a devastating assault on their democracy. Trump is after all a phony whose views flip like a weathervane. If the republic is successfully steered away from that ditch, it will be the best of American journalism in the drivers seat.

For as the courageous former president of Poland, and the current European President, Donald Tusk says, those who cannot see the echoes of a European politics of nearly a century ago in todays political climate are simply being willfully blind. Those tyrannies, whose success was the tragedy of the last century, could not have succeeded without first crushing an independent media.

Robin V. Sears, a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group and a Broadbent Institute leadership fellow, was an NDP strategist for 20 years.

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Journalists are the last guardians of our democracy: Sears - Toronto Star

Protesters have gathered at airports in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Dallas and other cities as immigration authorities begin to block entry to all refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Thousands of protesters gathered Saturday at JFK International Airport. The New York Taxi Workers Alliance joined the protest by calling on its members not to pick up passengers between 6 and 7 p.m. tonight.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other legal organizations filed an emergency lawsuit Saturday on behalf of plaintiffs who have been detained and threatened with deportation even though they have valid visas to enter the United States.

President Trumps war on equality is already taking a terrible human toll," said Omar Jadwat, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project. "This ban cannot be allowed to continue.

"Families are being ripped apart without warning and with no assurance of when they will be reunited," said the National Iranian American Council in a statement. "Students traveling abroad at the time of the ban are horrified that they might not be able to return to continue their studies. Children are being detained along with their parents when they were just seeking to return home. This is a dark day in the history of this country."

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Protests Erupt at US Airports As Trump Order Targeting Refugees & Muslim Immigrants Takes Effect - Democracy Now!