The Trump presidency has overturned many norms of democracy, but one of his most dangerous moves is the weaponization of the powers of government against his political opponents. He’s never shied away from talk of it—as the ubiquitous chants of “Lock her up” at his 2016 rallies made clear—but as the 2020 election nears, Trump’s tolerance for democratic checks on his power has eroded dramatically, and he has openly pressured his cabinet members to use the levers of state power to target his opponents and aid his re-election.
While the occasional news analysis or op-ed correctly labeled this “authoritarian” behavior, bringing out historians and other experts to warn that such moves are “unprecedented” and “an abuse of power” (e.g., New York Times, 10/10/20, Boston Globe, 10/15/20), these takes were largely overshadowed by bizarrely blasé front-page reports framing the story as a spat between Trump and his cabinet.
AP (10/8/20) talks about Trump “aggressively trying to use all of the levers of his power to gain ground in an election that has been moving away from him”—as though pushing the Justice Department to indict his political opponents were merely an electoral strategy, like door-to-door canvassing or lawn signs.
“Trump, Barr at Odds Over Slow Pace of Durham Investigation,” announced an October 8 Associated Press headline. At the Washington Post (10/8/20), the take was similar: “Down in the Polls and Yearning for an October Surprise, Trump Lashes at His Most Loyal Allies.” A Times headline at least gave a nod to the part played in this story by Trump’s actual opponents, but still put the Trump-versus-his-cabinet story center stage (10/8/20): “Trump Lashes Out at His Cabinet With Calls to Indict Political Rivals.”
These pieces offered readers little understanding of the gravity of the problem, with the Times simply noting that Trump “went further” than his usual talk of prosecuting opponents, and the AP blandly explaining that
the tensions between Trump and the attorney general over the fate of the probe underscore the extent to which the president is aggressively trying to use all of the levers of his power to gain ground in an election that has been moving away from him.
The next day, the Times (10/9/20) reframed the matter slightly after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acquiesced to Trump’s demands to release emails gathered in a security investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, noting in its story’s subhead:
The secretary of State said he would make Hillary Clinton’s emails public, handing the president a weapon to attack his political foes as the attorney general resisted his overtures to prosecute them.
But the seriousness of Pompeo’s actions was left almost entirely unexplained. At the very end of the piece, the reporters mention the Hatch Act in the context of Trump’s use of White House grounds for campaign purposes:
The president joked about the agitation he had caused among his critics about how he may have violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while on the job, by using the White House grounds for political purposes. He said he thought he would do it more.
He pitched the idea of staging events and concerts on the South Lawn every week up through Election Day. He appeared to be half-kidding, but half-intrigued by the idea, aides said.
And this is how the article ended.
The New York Times headline (10/9/20) frames the conflict as between Trump and his cabinet members—not between Trump and democracy.
The idea of a sitting government using taxpayer dollars for campaign purposes is considered highly undemocratic, and so we have many laws and institutions in place to prohibit it—including the Hatch Act. As ProPublica/WNYC reported in August (8/12/20), Trump officials had already been cited 13 times for Hatch Act violations by federal investigators with the Office of Special Counsel, with many more investigations underway.
Kellyanne Conway alone was responsible for so many Hatch Act violations that an OSC report (6/13/19) labeled them “egregious, notorious and ongoing,” and went so far as to formally ask Trump to remove her from federal service, declaring that her “actions erode the principal foundation of our democratic system—the rule of law.”
New York Times leadership has repeatedly stated (e.g., Guardian, 11/18/19) that they think the best way to cover Trump is simply to report what he says and does and let readers judge those words and actions. Their idea of hard-hitting reporting is found in passages such as this one, from the October 9 piece:
Neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Pompeo explained why they would release the emails now, in the final weeks of a hotly contested presidential campaign, given that they could have done so at any point in the past four years. Nor did they explain why they would seek to prove that Mrs. Clinton was too casual with emails containing classified information by releasing emails containing classified information.
At the Washington Post, Trump’s election prompted a new motto, “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” which suggests the same philosophy—that merely exposing anti-democratic actions to the light of publicity will neutralize their threat.
The problem is that the media continue to operate as if a normal democratic election is being held in this country, when it clearly is not (FAIR.org, 9/15/20). The president has repeatedly made baseless allegations of voter fraud, urged his followers to intimidate voters at the polls, and overruled FDA vaccine safety guidelines in an attempt to push out a Covid vaccine before the election, against the advice of scientific experts. He is ramming through a Supreme Court nomination while multiple members of the Senate are infectious with Covid to secure a pro-Trump Court majority that might be his only hope of staying in power. And now he is pressuring his cabinet members to use levers of state power to influence the election.
Reporting on that pressure as little more than an internecine squabble, and leaving it to readers to piece together the critical context and implications—or burying them on page 20, like the Times analysis, or leaving them to the op-ed page, relegating the value of democracy to a matter of opinion—is not enough. Democracy certainly seems capable of dying in the light, too.
Stenographers (When Obama used the FBI to investigate Trump): “…..”
Stenographers (When Trump returned the favor): “Unprecedented abuse of executive power!”
S ituation N ormalized
And that’s A ll F ucked U p
KEEP IT UP, JULIE!
I GREATLY APPRECIATE THIS WRITING.
“The Trump presidency has overturned many norms of democracy, but one of his most dangerous moves is the weaponization of the powers of government against his political opponents.”
That’s not abnormal at all.
Your articles are becoming increasingly biased and disconnected with reality.
Bullshit it’s not abnormal at all. I don’t recall any other President chanting “lock him/her up!” in my lifetime.
Yes, and when he had her locked up or had the FBI investigate her… Wait that didn’t happen, but Obama did have the FBI look into Trump. Of course, when all you read this this biased site, you’ll never hear about the bad actions of the left. I’d be surprised if you knew about Hunter and Joe’s plan to sell out the US for their gain.
Oh, so words mean nothing, then? Lock her up” is just harmless fun? Fuck off with that shit, pal. It’s the bully’s excuse when caught: “We were just fooling around; I didn’t mean anything by it!” Yeah, right… So how do you explain Trump’s recent tirades against Barr because his AG can’t figure out how to prosecute his political enemies when they haven’t committed any crimes? Just more empty words, huh? Even if that’s believable– and it’s only believable if you’re already in the Trump cult– should we really have a President that just talks out of his ass constantly? He’s the fucking President, fer cryin’ out loud– not the drunk at a bar telling stories.
The FBI investigated Trump because his campaign was fucking awash in criminals. That’s kinda what they do. If anybody else’s campaign had as many convicted people in it, you’d be screaming bloody fucking murder and you know it.
Oh please, lemme hear about how Biden and his dodgy son is a criminal genius with plans to sell out the US? It’ll be a refreshing change from how he’s a doddering dementia patient.
John, You’re a real charmer. Actions speak louder than words. The FBI was weaponized by the Obama. Lock her up was not once acted upon. Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime. You and I commit crimes everyday. With 75k PAGES of new laws and regulations ever year, we ALL commit crimes. The “justice” department could lock you up (or me for that matter) if you or I were in their sights.
Thank goodness for your ignorance then. President Obama and his stooges tried to lock the opponent up, and the Democrats kept doing so afterwards. No ability to admit that Trump had won legitimately.
“chant” vs. “actual measures to do”
It’s pretty clear where your laughable priorities are. Nothing to do with facts, or real consequences. Similar to Julia Hollar, who has lost her fucking mind on TDS, similar to Bernie Sanders, YOU, and a lot of other dumbasses.
Barack Obama murdered Americans and killed hundreds of thousands of foreigners. And oversaw the largest loss of black wealth in history, via fucking homeowners over. He is a disgusting piece of shit. By his ACTIONS. Not his words, which were always those of a con man.
Please reflect on yourself and your bias, at least once.
And no, “norms” are also laughable and utterly irrelevant to anything at all.
And I hate Trump and Obama and Biden equally. They should each hang on nooses, if there were any justice in the world, for their mass murders.
But conflating Trump’s :words: with Obama or Bush’s :actual actions: is foolish and stupid. And exposing oneself again as a naive sucker who’d bought into Obama’s lies.
Most deported ever. More wars. Assassinated Americans without habeas. Turned the most prosperous African nation into a literal slave state. Prosecuted a half dozen whistleblowers, but ZERO torturers and ZERO bankers.
This guy Obama was a disgusting piece of shit. And Biden for 47 years was instrumental in all of it, Biden has hundreds of thousands of innocent corpses on his hands.
You and Julie Hollar though, pretend that words mean more than mounds of corpses.
It’s goddamn ridiculous. PLEASE at least just admit that you think the 5% Americans of the 95% of the other humans, are more important to you. Julie Hollar’s life is worth thousands of Iraqi children’s lives, spread out over several square miles, limbs and heads and intestines.
And also, obviously: Joe Biden, Donald Trump, George Bush, Barack Obama are enemies of poor people, and are also war criminals who if there were any justice in the world would be each executed or imprisoned for life for their crimes.
Do you and Julie Hollar admit this?
Yeah, Trump won legitimately. But his campaign staff was a bunch of fucking criminals. Many of them have been convicted of serious crimes. It’s one thing to go after actual criminals because they committed crimes; it’s another thing to go after your political enemies even when they haven’t committed any crimes. And it’s another thing entirely to use it as a fucking campaign slogan. Words mean something. Words from the President mean even more.
You can think whatever you want about Obama, but he’s not a con man. He’s a politician. There’s a difference. How many lawsuits and civil judgements has Obama had to pay out again?
My priorities are not letting a fat-assed con man run this country into the ground. He will not and cannot separate his own personal interests from the interests of the country. That’s not a good situation. It’s not derangement syndrome to see a problem and wanna correct it, and I see a huge fucking problem.
Well done Fair, you are probably, very nearly, the only truly straight and honest site for News in Politics USA.
Trump is a monster of such gross proportions but there are “leaders” in theUK and Australia who emulate and admire him.
The greatest dereliction of journalistic integrity is the failure of the media to report the contents of the e-mails. They won’t affect the election, any more than Hunter Biden’s hanky panky with the Ukrainian government will, but they probably will prove to be evidence of the grotesque corruption of the U.S. electoral freak show. If the media reported honestly, the Green Party would win in November.
Tim wrote: “John, You’re a real charmer. Actions speak louder than words. The FBI was weaponized by the Obama. Lock her up was not once acted upon. Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime. You and I commit crimes everyday. With 75k PAGES of new laws and regulations ever year, we ALL commit crimes. The “justice” department could lock you up (or me for that matter) if you or I were in their sights.”
I’m not trying to be a charmer. I’m pissed and I’ve made that perfectly clear. Don’t like it? Then fuck off and don’t engage with me.
The FBI is a weapon to fight crime. The Trump campaign was chock full of criminals. What’s the fucking problem with that exactly? Didn’t Trump campaign to drain the fucking swamp or something?
No, I’m not a criminal. And “everyone commits all kinds of crimes” is not the persuasive argument you seem to think it is. Especially when your cult leader is harping on “law and order” constantly.
Yeah, actions may speak louder than words. But you know what else speaks like words? Fuckin’ words, dude. It is NOT appropriate for the President to constantly exhort his dipshit supporters to fantasize about the persecution of his personal political enemies. He tweets to liberate Michigan and you get kidnapping and murder plots against the Governor, fer chrissakes! Where is line you’re ever gonna draw with the guy? Huh? What the fuck would Trump have to do to cost your support? If he was any other politician, you’d have turned on him after the “I prefer war heroes that don’t get captured”.
You’re grasping at connections. We on the right have the same weak connections with the left committing crimes. You just don’t see them because you’re in a little bubble. I’ll take my three justices and say see you at the polls. No more legislating at the bench. No more ramming liberty crushing laws through. We got a 20 year respite. I got exactly what I voted for.
If that’s all you care about– over the absolute degenerate character and abject stupidity of the narcissist fat-ass you put in charge– then your opinion about what’s best for the country should count for jack shit.
And it still doesn’t explain the bottomless well of excuses. If you voted for an incompetent dipshit who shouldn’t be trusted to run a lemonade stand, then fucking own it; knock off this, “he’s actually a successful businessman” and ” oh, he’s just all talk,” and “it’s Biden who’s the criminal” bullshit.
Why not talk about Biden? Where is the coverage of Hunter?
Because Biden is infinitely preferable to the draft-dodging, fat-assed, con-man currently occupying the White House. That’s why.
Again: why the charade? If you’re honest when you say all you care about is judges and gutting regulations, then there’s no need to make Trump look better or to make Biden look worse. If the emperor you love has no clothes and that’s perfectly fine with you because of judges or whatever, why this concerted attempt to put clothes on him? Why the attempts to make Biden naked?
Don’t be so narrow minded. Biden is infinitely preferable to you. He is infinitely worse to me. You didn’t make an argument. You just stated an opinion. Presidents are for four years, justices are for 20+. The FBI just subpoenaed Hunter’s computer. Biden isn’t through this yet.
Yeah, I stated and opinion. And I’ve clearly stated why I have it.
You’ve said that the only thing you care about is that Trump appoints judges you like and rolls back regulations you don’t like. Period. You said that. And you keep dodging my question which is, to remind you: “If that’s the only thing you care about, why are you engaging in this fruitless effort to portray Trump as something he’s not– a good businessman, honest, competent, not lazy, not a narcissist, etc.?” And also, why do you care if Biden is sleazy or whatever?
You won’t answer these questions despite me asking repeatedly, so I’m gonna assume either you were lying when you said it’s all you care about or you can’t reconcile some uncomfortable truths about your cult leader so you have to try to build him up and/or have to try to tear Biden down. Either way, it’s fucking bullshit: if you have ethical misgivings based on horrifically sketchy information about Biden, fucking un-ignore-able alarm bells should be ringing non-stop about Trump.
I think Trump is a good business man. He’s done better than either of us. I have no idea if he’s an honest businessman or not. Neither do you. You just believe he’s not due to innuendo. You read left wing stuff like this. I’d be surprised if you read any right wing media. I read it all. I see the bias all day long coming from the left. You swallowed it all: hook, line, sinker, bobber, pole, and reel.
I’m over here basking in the light of my three supreme court justices.
Take the last word, it’s all you have.
The guy has been sued for fraud multiple times and had to pay off a porn star and you have no idea if he’s an honest businessman?
OK, I’ll take the last word: fuck off. Your opinions should count for jack shit. And I pray to God that someday the Republican Party realizes that.
i hope joe biden votes .
This man is worthy.
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