As Trump wages war on the media, the echoes of Erdogan grow louder – Washington Post
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There is a surreal goofiness to President Trumps relentless war on Americas mainstream media.The disgruntled president responds to negative covfefe with cheesy hashtags and nicknames for his perceived adversaries: Theres psycho Joe Scarborough and low I.Q. crazy Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC, the failing New York Times and The Washington Post (for the record,were both doing pretty well in the age of Trump), and Trumps favorite target, fake or fraud CNN.
On Sunday, Trump, who was sitting at a golf course he owns in New Jersey, tweeted a childishclip of him wrestling down a person representing CNN.
At a time when aGOP politician has actually body-slammed a journalist, it wasnt funny. Brian Stelter, CNNs media reporter, tweeted a CNN statementsaying it was a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters.
President Trump renewed his attacks against CNN, which he has repeatedly called "fake news," on June 27, after CNN retracted a story about ties between a Trump associate and a Russian investment fund. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
But for Trump, the relentless drumbeat of anger against the press is a clear political tactic, designed to stoke his baseand build up anarrative of victimization. The president has complained virtually nonstop since taking office about the supposedly unfair coverage surrounding the White House, casting journalists as the opposition. He has also repeatedly broken assumed conventions of decency in American politics, fanned the flames of right-wing extremism among his support, and shamelessly spouted numerous falsehoodsonboth trivial and consequential matters. His behavior has compelledthe press coverage he now decries.
Of course, theres a legitimate conversation to be had about whether the media is biased against Trump, a president who radically reshaped the political climate in Washington. This week, for instance, CNN was forced to retract a botched investigative story on the Trump camps Russian connections. The network even let go three senior journalists associated with the piece.
Trump and his supporters crowed about the mistake, but pointedly ignored CNNs willingness to hold itself accountable for its mistakes a willingness Trump never has displayed overhis own misstatements and incendiary remarks. The president instead keeps usinghis social media megaphone and his proxies in theright-wing media bubble to denounce the entire media establishment as enemies of the American people.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) warned Trump against trying to weaponize distrust of the media. Butno matter the (softly spoken)censure from fellow Republican politicians,Trump cant seem to do any wrong in the eyes of his core supporters.
They like him, they believe in him, they have not to any large degree been shaken from him, and the more the media attacks him, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the side of the Trump supporters who fervently believe the media treat him unfairly, said Tony Fabrizio, the chief pollster for Trumps campaign, to my colleagues. Its like, Beat me with that sword some more!
Trump is hardly the first politician to weaponize distrust of the media. In the wake of Trumps Sunday tweet, Richard Haass, the president of the indisputably bipartisan Council on Foreign Relations, likened Trumps rhetoric to that of a more practiced strongman president.
The stakes in Turkey are, of course, profoundly greater.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withstood a violent coup attempt a year ago, which prompted his government to embark on a vast purge of state institutions and civil society. More than 100journalists have been thrown into prisonor forced into exile. Dozens ofmedia outlets have been closed or taken over by state authorities.Newspapers that were once titans of the establishment have seen their editors criminalized and offices raided.
But there are some importantsimilarities to bear in mind. Both Erdogan and Trump channel a kind of majoritarian nationalismanchored in grievance at cosmopolitan elites. And both paint their critics as threats to the nation. Over the weekend, Erdogan labeled a peaceful opposition protest marchfrom Ankara to Istanbul as the work of terrorist sympathizers.
The echoes of Erdogan in Trumps political style offer an uncomfortable new realityfor Americans,suggested Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman.
It is that, given enough time, any democratic system is vulnerable to assaults from a determined, dictatorial leader, wrote Rachmanearlier this year. Mr. Erdogan became prime minister in 2003 and, over time, utterly changed his country. As one Turkish intellectual put it to me ... Things that I would once have thought impossible are now happening on a daily basis.
Trump is not yet going nearly as far as Erdogan, who jails journalists, but the preliminary logic is the same an attempt to undermine the credibility of those who hold power to account, wrote Brian Klaas, a fellow at the London School of Economics and author ofa recent book on the erosion of democracies, in January.
The German newsweeklyDer Spiegel put it moststarkly in a February editorial: Erdogan and Trump are positioning themselves as the only ones capable of truly understanding the people and speaking for them. Its their view that freedom of the press does not protect democracy and that the press isnt reverent enough to them and is therefore useless. They believe that the words that come from their mouths as powerful leaders are the truth and that the media, when it strays from them, is telling lies. Thats autocratic thinking and it is how you sustain a dictatorship.
Tellingly, the two leaders have defended the other from their critics. In the wake of Erdogans purge, Trump said the United States didnt have much right to criticize the Turkish presidents crackdown; in the wake of Trumps inauguration, Erdogan described protests against the new president as disrespectful and applauded Trumps singling out CNN as fake news during a testy exchange at a news conference.
That day, Erdogancongratulated Trump for putting the CNN reporter in his place. Its the same sentiment many Trump supporters probablyfeel with every new hashtag and barbed insult hurled at journalists.
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As Trump wages war on the media, the echoes of Erdogan grow louder - Washington Post