On Sunday, the Boston Globe published a mock front page, filled with ominous headlines and half-joking prognostications, to “warn” the GOP against nominating Donald Trump. A accompanying editorial proclaimed that Trump’s “vision for the future of our nation is as deeply disturbing as it is profoundly un-American.”
But what’s strange about this “satire” is how most of the things it’s warning about are already underway, or have long existed. Indeed, Trump’s vision isn’t un-American; it’s America on steroids.
The main headline for the piece warns of Trump initiating mass deportations of immigrants:
Deportations to Begin: President Trump Calls for Tripling of ICE Force; Riots Continue
But deportations can’t “begin” when they never stopped. From the Boston Globe itself two months ago: “Local Deportation Underscores Wider Immigration Debate.” In 2014, the National Council of La Raza called Obama the “deporter-in-chief” after he deported 2 million immigrants—more than any other president in history.
Another Globe mock headline reports, “US Soldiers Refuse Orders to Kill ISIS Families”—as if the US had never attacked families of its adversaries before. But in 2011, after a US drone assassinated alleged Al Qaeda propagandist (and US citizen) Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, another airstrike killed al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, just two weeks later.
While the White House said the death of the younger al-Awlaki was an accident, the killing of innocents, including family members, when targeting alleged “terrorists” is a routine practice. According to one estimate, revealed by The Intercept in 2015, over 90 percent of the people killed in drone strikes during a one-month period in Afghanistan were not the “intended target.” The US has engaged in “double tap” drone strikes, where an attack on a suspected militant is followed by a second strike targeting rescue workers—or, in some cases, the first target’s funeral.
The Globe also criticized Trump for threats against journalists with the headline “New Libel Laws Target ’Absolute Scum’ in Press.” The Obama White House hasn’t used libel laws, but it has gone after journalists and their sources in an unprecedented manner, often using the 1917 Espionage Act. Of the 11 times US presidents have used the Espionage Act to punish whistleblowing, seven have been under Obama. The Committee to Protect Journalists said in 2013 that Obama’s “war on leaks” was the most “aggressive since Nixon.”
None of which is to say things might not be far worse under a Trump presidency, a wildly unknown quantity from a bizarre personage. But election coverage that focuses entirely on personality misses the point: Many of these plans that Trump is advancing already exist, only to a lesser or more polite degree. A major publication making “satire” out of already-existing policies that are currently ruining people’s lives isn’t funny or courageous; it’s tone deaf and myopic.
Adam Johnson is a contributing analyst for FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamJohnsonNYC.
Not an anomaly
An analogy
OUR CLAIM TO FAME AND FORTUNE
From our genocide of the native American Indian, to our ongoing genocide of the native population of Palestine, to our ordering of complaint governments in Central and South America to commit genocide on indigenous tribes that get in the way of our mining operations, surely we white Anglo-Saxon scum bags have to be the most greed driven creatures the world has ever known.
Yes we get to hear a lot of wild and mean things said about Donald Trump these days. And I know that the guy takes to speaking quite brashly fairly often, it could just be part of his nature. And I don’t believe that he meant every single thing he ever said to the plain literal point but more in an analytical out look. The real thing is that I have taken a look at his agenda, the plans he has for our country, I look at what he wants to do for the given situations in our great nation. Then I also get to see that since he is, as we know it, wealthy, he is not under the strings of the banking and corporate powers-to-be and can very much be himself. He should not be too easy to bribe with corporate campaign money. The ONE republican who does NOT want to slash and bash social security, and also promises to bring back the jobs. I’ll take it. At a time when the American republic has been greatly divided and thus weakened, he wants to TEMPORARILY halt mass immigration and stop the illegal influx from the South, (which undersells the hardest working Americans) there is nothing racist about it, he only wants to make our country safer. And concerning that women may end up using coat hangers to abort themselves, Trump was not always so anti-choice, he is only tailoring to the heavy handed call of the republican folks around him, so maybe the guy is operating by our good old democracy and simply doing what we want him to do. Putting a stop to Isis, bringing back millions of jobs and creating competition to keep workers and thus generating more revenue while at the same time getting more people NOT to need food stamps is NOT unconstitutional. I hope more of us will be willing to give the guy a try. He just may really help our nation in a great time of need. And taxing the ultra-rich hedge fund investment entities to help stave off the growing national debt is a lot nicer than putting the entire burden on the backs of the poor folks, after all, it was quite a heck of a lot to do with the bankers as to why we are in this position anyhow.
Ooops it looks like I got a “double exposier” of my post about Donald Trump, I was trying to make a reply to John Ellis. I only wanted to say that even though there is a lot of greed in our nation, at the same time there are a lot of caucasion white folks who are not so greedy and ruthless and I can only hope and pray that our country does not go down in flames of interior hatred. There are good folks in this nation like there are in all the others and I’d hate to see the inside-hatred become indiscriminate and have our whole society get swallowed up in a festering hatred. Anyone who wants to see the American society as a whole go down, must have some kind of hidden hatred toward him/her self, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not something that can be changed for the better.
I think you are missing the point of this satire, which I found brilliant. If mocking the awful and terrifying is off limits, then FAIR should pack up and go home, because that’s what you’ve been doing all along. I’m not the only one who laughs bitterly while reading EXTRA.
Of course Obama is deporting record numbers of immigrants–does that make warning against Trump’s plan to deport EVERYONE “myopic”?
Of course we’re killing innocents “accidentally” as collateral damage–does that make warning against mass targeted assassination of entire families “tone deaf”?
Obama’s targeting of whistle-blowers is terrible, but Trump’s promise to arrest anyone who writes mean things about him takes it to another level.
You say this “focuses entirely on personality” and “misses the point?” Say what? This focuses on the issues and gets right to the point.
(You missed the Mexican border wall story with the government concrete contractors “working out of a social club in Queens, NY”–see David Cay Johnston for Trumps’ mob ties. If you think mob ties are just “personality”, you’ve never worked for anyone with mob ties.)
You say yourself that Trump would be worse. The current state of affairs is not being ignored by the Globe (as you note). The problem is your assumption that anyone reading it was born yesterday or has the memory of a goldfish. That’s rather patronizing to Boston Globe readers.
This mock front page was part of a terrific Ideas section Sunday. There was a Q&A with Junot Diaz, who rightly calls Trump and his supporters white supremacists, while calling out Obama for “deporting everyone and their grandmother”. There was also a two page spread of newspaper clippings going back to the 19th century of women dying from illegal abortions, showing that under “abortion prohibition”, abortion was “not safe, not legal, and not rare”. If this is myopic and tone deaf, I’ll take it.
Yes we get to hear a lot of wild and mean things said about Donald Trump these days. And I know that the guy takes to speaking quite brashly fairly often, it could just be part of his nature. And I don’t believe that he meant every single thing he ever said to the plain literal point but more in an analytical out look. The real thing is that I have taken a look at his agenda, the plans he has for our country, I look at what he wants to do for the given situations in our great nation. Then I also get to see that since he is, as we know it, wealthy, he is not under the strings of the banking and corporate powers-to-be and can very much be himself. He should not be too easy to bribe with corporate campaign money. The ONE republican who does NOT want to slash and bash social security, and also promises to bring back the jobs. I’ll take it. At a time when the American republic has been greatly divided and thus weakened, he wants to TEMPORARILY halt mass immigration and stop the illegal influx from the South, (which undersells the hardest working Americans) there is nothing racist about it, he only wants to make our country safer. And concerning that women may end up using coat hangers to abort themselves, Trump was not always so anti-choice, he is only tailoring to the heavy handed call of the republican folks around him, so maybe the guy is operating by our good old democracy and simply doing what we want him to do. Putting a stop to Isis, bringing back millions of jobs and creating competition to keep workers and thus generating more revenue while at the same time getting more people NOT to need food stamps is NOT unconstitutional. I hope more of us will be willing to give the guy a try. He just may really help our nation in a great time of need. And taxing the ultra-rich hedge fund investment entities to help stave off the growing national debt is a lot nicer than putting the entire burden on the backs of the poor folks, after all, it was quite a heck of a lot to do with the bankers as to why we are in this position anyhow.
Okay, so you’re supporting Trump in expectation that he will break most of his campaign promises?! Uh, right. There’s too much to address here, and your rhetoric isn’t really amenable to fact-based discussion. I’ll just tackle one thing: your contention that Trump plans on “taxing the ultra-rich hedge fund investment entities”. His actual tax plan includes these provisions:
Reduce the top personal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 25 percent, and reduce the number of tax brackets from 7 to 3.
End the special tax break for the “carried interest” income enjoyed by hedge fund managers.
The carried interest rate is currently 23.8% (20% net capital gains plus 3.8% investment tax). Under Trump, hedge fund managers would see a whopping 1.2% tax hike–and that’s assuming all their income is taxed at the top rate. That’s not going to do much to “help stave off the growing national debt”, especially when his massive tax cuts for the rich reduce revenue by 12 trillion dollars over the next decade (analysis by Citizens for Tax Justice).
Is there a source where I can view for the information you gave me about Trumps plans on 39% to 25% tax ceiling and the three tax brackets breaks for the corporate rich since I must have missed out on that? Are we all sure that Trump is going to really do that now? Now what would Cruz do in comparison? Would he be any less favoring to the ultra-rich? Would Cruz bring back all the jobs which Trump openly says he will? Let’s not forget about all the revenue which will be created by the millions of jobs. Would Cruz leave our social security sound?
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/12/2016_repository.php#.Vw1E_npcC_s
You can scroll down the page to see the various reports. The page on Trump I used was this:
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/09/donald_trumps_10_trillion_tax_cut.php#.Vw1FRXpcC_s
the Cruz page:
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2015/09/donald_trumps_10_trillion_tax_cut.php#.Vw1FRXpcC_s
If you don’t trust CTJ, here’s Forbes’ analysis:
http://fortune.com/2016/03/08/donald-trumps-tax-plan-primary/
Cruz promises a $435,854 tax cut for the top 1%, vs. Trump’s $227,225, so if you’re hell-bent on voting for a Republican, and taxes are your issue, Trump is your man (Kasich hasn’t released a tax plan with enough detail to analyze). “Are we all sure that Trump is going to really do that now?” Again, if you are counting on Trump breaking all the campaign promises you don’t like, there’s no ground for discussion. You think revenue created by cutting taxes will create jobs? Supply-side economics (or “voodoo economics”, as George H.W. Bush memorably called it) didn’t work under Reagan, and it won’t work now. I’m planning on keeping Social Security safe by keeping every Republican candidate out of the White House.
Oooohh no I don’t think tax cuts create too many jobs at all, the real job creator in my mind is demand, not tax breaks for the rich. I only remember hearing about Trump’s plan to tax the hedge fund investment entities and use those proceeds to help fend off the national debt. How ever, I do like Trumps idea of raising the individual annual taxable income deduction from $10,250 to $25,000. There have been conflicting reports on what Trump has in mind for the countries situations, but in the over-all, I think he’s our man. And I would not be surprised if Cruz plans on bigger tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy, that is just so establishment status like, even though Cruz claims to be very un-establishment status, I still have difficulty believing him. I think of all the candidates out there, the ones with the least of evil connections would likely be Sanders and Trump even though I could be wrong.
Sorry, linked to the Trump page twice. Here’s the Cruz tax plan:
http://ctj.org/ctjreports/2016/03/ted_cruzs_tax_plan_would_cost_139_trillion_while_increasing_taxes_on_most_americans.php#.Vw1kA3pcC_s
Why does Adam Johnson call Anwar al-Awlaki an “alleged” Al Qaeda propagandist? He appeared in Al Qaeda videos and wrote regularly for Al Qaeda’s online magazine.
Those who protested the drone strike against him said he had a free speech right to call for murdering Americans, and they cast doubt on whether he played an operational role in the organization, but I don’t think anyone would deny he was a propagandist for Al Qaeda.
Excellent point. I was very put off by the parody. In the old days, I used to criticize the mainstream media for it’s hypocritical veneer of objectivity. Now, I find myself longing for a bit more of that faux objectivity. It was, at least, some constraint. There seems to be a dearth of reporting and a plethora of pundits delivering a limited range of opinion. Speculation is often substituted for fact, even where the facts are politically neutral. It’s as though research and investigation are anathema to journalists now. They much prefer to layout a scenario of what the facts may look like had they not been too lazy to discover them. And speculation has the benefit of being a far more malleable medium from which to draw a conclusion. Isn’t that what’s been done here? It’s far easier and neater to invent a scenario of the impending catastrophe and then poke fun at it than to lay out a logical, well supported, argument that explains point by point, the pitfalls, inconsistencies and probable consequences of implementing Trumps ideas. As much as I abhor Trump it seems like a cheap shot and a practice that degrades the entire discourse. Like the invented Bernie Bro controversy, that was most likely contrived by a campaign strategist and unleashed fully formed as if were a commonly agreed upon phenomenon, it gets everyone arguing about something that can’t really be nailed down. Parody should be used as a mean to sharpen criticism not as a means to avoid the work of critical thinking. The Boston Globe has arranged Trumps policies like so many bowling pins to facilitate the most impressive impact. Ultimately, the impact is not impressive. It is easily dismissed by Trump. In fact he manages to deliver one of the only witty and cogent lines of his entire candidacy: “The whole front page is a make-believe story, which is really no different from the whole paper.” They invited that. The Boston Globe doesn’t get to put itself forward as a hard hitting news agency, and then resort to the sort of argument favored by mean girls in a high school cafeteria.
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