These past weeks have seen a lot of chatter about Trump's "false equivalence" strategy, his rhetoric equating white supremacists and neo-Nazis with the counter-protesters, attributing both sides with equal responsibility for violence and the death Heather Heyer. Trump's belated lame attempt to compensate for early bumbling, and failure to exude a statesmanlike, calming influence, has rightly stirred criticism from Democrats, the media and, more significantly, from a few Republicans.
Has Trump finally crossed the line into territory placing his presidency in danger? Probably not - we have been down this road too many times to believe that. His questioning of President Obama's citizenship and presidential legitimacy, dissing Senator McCain's POW status, a flap with the Pope, verbal attacks on Muslim Gold Star parents whose son died saving his fellow soldiers, boasting how powerful men like him have their way with women - the list goes on.
While those actions riled his critics, Trump survives, even flourishes. His voters still love him. Speaker Ryan and Republican politicians are scared of him. He continues to trash his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, in contrast to Republican and Democratic victors alike having traditionally treated their vanquished foes with respect.
He continues to hammer Democrats. That's to be expected, but it lacks punch in that Trump's Republicans control both chambers of Congress. It's disingenuous, and ineffective, to blame the hapless Democrats who are powerless and control nothing.
He's more accurate when he blames his own Republicans - some of them, anyway - for legislative failure. That tactic illustrates Trump's absolute ignorance about how government works. The Congress is a co-equal branch of government. The big egos of the Senate highly resent a president treating them as mere underlings, expected to jump when so ordered, and even replace their own leader when McConnell disappoints the president. It's Trump's Republicans who will determine whether significant legislation is passed on health care, immigration, tax reform, infrastructure or anything else.
Which reminds us, unless the debt ceiling, always a contentious issue, especially among Republicans, is raised this autumn, the government will be shut down and/or be unable to pay its bills. It is well to recall that for each obligation the government doesn't pay, someone does not receive a payment, including those on which low-income Trump supporters depend.
Trump sees the media as his biggest enemy. That's a clever ruse as most everybody, including left-of-center Democrats, has their gripes about the media, especially the commercial broadcast media.
Some astute investigative reporters of the print media have been doing some excellent work. But the broadcast media that Trump has successfully manipulated has been asleep at the switch. It is high time that it shows signs of coming to life and calls out Trump on his false equivalence in assigning equal blame to the neo-Nazis and the counter-protesters for the tragedy at Charlottesville.
The networks and cable channels have for too long themselves been guilty of "false equivalence" journalism. For example, how many times have the talking heads reminded us that "Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame for gridlock?" The cold fact is that upon Obama's election in 2008, McConnell and his Republicans vowed to block everything and anything that Obama would propose, attempting to make him a one-term president.
Republicans cooperated with Obama on absolutely nothing, including health care. The media then blame the Republicans and Democrats equally. "Gridlock was equally Obama's fault because he didn't schmooze the members of Congress" - didn't invite them over to the White House to woo them.
Sure, maybe Obama could have been more sociable. But he's no Bill Clinton in this respect. And failing to schmooze with the Republicans is hardly equivalent to the Republican solemn vow to block Obama's every move.
Fast forward to summer 2017. Republicans find themselves in a jam of their own making. After promising for seven years to repeal Obamacare, they find it impossible to do without replacing it, and they have nothing with which to replace it. A House bill passes, with Trump later admitting that it is "mean." Under pressure from constituents, the Senate concocts another bill in secret - no Democratic input - and brings it to vote without the benefit of hearings. When confronted with this gambit, the Republicans pass it off as "equivalent" to what they assert the "Democrats did," claiming that the Democrats "rammed it through without a single Republican vote."
The last part is true, there were no Republican votes for the ACA, neither from Sens. McCain and Collins. But the two years, countless hearings and adoption of Republican amendments in formation of Obamacare hardly qualify as equivalent to the last minute Republican concoction of their 2017 bill in absolute secrecy. A responsible media would remind the public of this and not legitimize Republican talking points of false equivalence.
The broadcast media have failed the public time and again. A most significant lapse was during the national GOP Convention. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn whipped up the delegates to lynch-mob type frenzy, leading the chant to "Lock her up."
The media gave the Trump campaign an absolute free pass on that. It would not be "taking sides" for the celebrity journalists of the network and cable channels to have chastised Flynn and remind viewers that democracies don't lock up political prisoners, or whip up partisans to lynch-mob type frenzy.
It seems that commentators and chattering talking heads think they are being "balanced" if, when they criticize one side, they must find something on which to criticize the other, however trivial it might be.
It's high time that the media call out Trump on his "false equivalence" messaging. Trump will cite this as "fake news." That's ironic, as Trump is the product of the very media that he now sees as "the enemy."
The profit-oriented broadcast media have been asleep at the switch for too long. If Trump doesn't like their awakening, he has only himself to blame.
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in the Monroe Times.
Has Trump finally crossed the line into territory placing his presidency in danger? Probably not - we have been down this road too many times to believe that. His questioning of President Obama's citizenship and presidential legitimacy, dissing Senator McCain's POW status, a flap with the Pope, verbal attacks on Muslim Gold Star parents whose son died saving his fellow soldiers, boasting how powerful men like him have their way with women - the list goes on.
While those actions riled his critics, Trump survives, even flourishes. His voters still love him. Speaker Ryan and Republican politicians are scared of him. He continues to trash his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton, in contrast to Republican and Democratic victors alike having traditionally treated their vanquished foes with respect.
He continues to hammer Democrats. That's to be expected, but it lacks punch in that Trump's Republicans control both chambers of Congress. It's disingenuous, and ineffective, to blame the hapless Democrats who are powerless and control nothing.
He's more accurate when he blames his own Republicans - some of them, anyway - for legislative failure. That tactic illustrates Trump's absolute ignorance about how government works. The Congress is a co-equal branch of government. The big egos of the Senate highly resent a president treating them as mere underlings, expected to jump when so ordered, and even replace their own leader when McConnell disappoints the president. It's Trump's Republicans who will determine whether significant legislation is passed on health care, immigration, tax reform, infrastructure or anything else.
Which reminds us, unless the debt ceiling, always a contentious issue, especially among Republicans, is raised this autumn, the government will be shut down and/or be unable to pay its bills. It is well to recall that for each obligation the government doesn't pay, someone does not receive a payment, including those on which low-income Trump supporters depend.
Trump sees the media as his biggest enemy. That's a clever ruse as most everybody, including left-of-center Democrats, has their gripes about the media, especially the commercial broadcast media.
Some astute investigative reporters of the print media have been doing some excellent work. But the broadcast media that Trump has successfully manipulated has been asleep at the switch. It is high time that it shows signs of coming to life and calls out Trump on his false equivalence in assigning equal blame to the neo-Nazis and the counter-protesters for the tragedy at Charlottesville.
The networks and cable channels have for too long themselves been guilty of "false equivalence" journalism. For example, how many times have the talking heads reminded us that "Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame for gridlock?" The cold fact is that upon Obama's election in 2008, McConnell and his Republicans vowed to block everything and anything that Obama would propose, attempting to make him a one-term president.
Republicans cooperated with Obama on absolutely nothing, including health care. The media then blame the Republicans and Democrats equally. "Gridlock was equally Obama's fault because he didn't schmooze the members of Congress" - didn't invite them over to the White House to woo them.
Sure, maybe Obama could have been more sociable. But he's no Bill Clinton in this respect. And failing to schmooze with the Republicans is hardly equivalent to the Republican solemn vow to block Obama's every move.
Fast forward to summer 2017. Republicans find themselves in a jam of their own making. After promising for seven years to repeal Obamacare, they find it impossible to do without replacing it, and they have nothing with which to replace it. A House bill passes, with Trump later admitting that it is "mean." Under pressure from constituents, the Senate concocts another bill in secret - no Democratic input - and brings it to vote without the benefit of hearings. When confronted with this gambit, the Republicans pass it off as "equivalent" to what they assert the "Democrats did," claiming that the Democrats "rammed it through without a single Republican vote."
The last part is true, there were no Republican votes for the ACA, neither from Sens. McCain and Collins. But the two years, countless hearings and adoption of Republican amendments in formation of Obamacare hardly qualify as equivalent to the last minute Republican concoction of their 2017 bill in absolute secrecy. A responsible media would remind the public of this and not legitimize Republican talking points of false equivalence.
The broadcast media have failed the public time and again. A most significant lapse was during the national GOP Convention. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn whipped up the delegates to lynch-mob type frenzy, leading the chant to "Lock her up."
The media gave the Trump campaign an absolute free pass on that. It would not be "taking sides" for the celebrity journalists of the network and cable channels to have chastised Flynn and remind viewers that democracies don't lock up political prisoners, or whip up partisans to lynch-mob type frenzy.
It seems that commentators and chattering talking heads think they are being "balanced" if, when they criticize one side, they must find something on which to criticize the other, however trivial it might be.
It's high time that the media call out Trump on his "false equivalence" messaging. Trump will cite this as "fake news." That's ironic, as Trump is the product of the very media that he now sees as "the enemy."
The profit-oriented broadcast media have been asleep at the switch for too long. If Trump doesn't like their awakening, he has only himself to blame.
- John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in the Monroe Times.
