On May 24, 2017, Montana's newest congressman, Greg “The Body-Slammer” Gianforte, followed up on President Donald Trump's boast to do with the willingness of Republican voters to shrug off his vulgar, even thuggish words and manner – “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”
In other words, I'm imagining that the press can't lose this war.
Ever the Trump loyalist Gianforte was also following up on Trump's Feb. 24, 2017, comment labeling the Press in the USA as the “enemy of the people.”
Given his many other over-the-top statements deriding, even threatening the Fourth Estate in the USA, it was clear to me that Trump was declaring war on the working press, itself. Given the low regard the
To start with, I've no doubt Trump plans to win this war. Furthermore, there's no reason to hope he's merely trying to manipulate the news media – tame them, so to speak. No. By now we know enough about our president's insatiable thirst for winning. When it comes to any kind of war there's just no way Trump means to come out of it as less than a conqueror.
With freedom of the press continuing as we've known it to be, President Trump can't become emperor of all he surveys. Thus, the free press has to go. Trump may not win the war on the press, but he probably won't fail because he didn't give it his best effort.
Of course many people will disagree with my analysis because they like Trump and they can't imagine he could be that crazy for more power than he already has. Well, I can. Trump is a voracious monster with an ego a lot of people probably can't fathom.
Whether the focus groups that guided Trump's campaign were run by propagandists from Madison Avenue of the Kremlin, or both, perish the notion that he was doing all of it on the fly. Trump and his team my not understand how governments work but they know plenty about propaganda.
Trump sees a time in which the mainstream media are cowed. Publishers and journalists will be in jail for being in on the resistance, which will have become an underground movement. Marshall law will be declared to prevent terrorist attacks. In that time the social media will be dominant. Trumpist will be the bosses in every town. You get the picture.
In other words, I'm imagining that the press can't lose this war.
