A sure sign that a campaign is failing is when the candidate
blames the press for his problems. The latest example is Republican
presidential nominee Donald Trump.
Trump took to Twitter Sunday to attack the
press for his sinking campaign. "It is not 'freedom of the press'
when newspapers and others are allowed to say and write whatever they want even
if it is completely false," Trump wrote. In the words of Khizr Khan, directed at Trump during last month's Democratic Convention, "Have you
even read the Constitution?" Apparently he hasn’t.
The U.S. Constitution is clear:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or
of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
the Government for a redress of grievances." The First Amendment was
adopted in 1791 by the Founding Fathers to protect the rights of individuals to
express themselves through publication without interference from the
government.
This is a founding principle of the United
States, and it has withstood many challenges since its enactment more than 200
years ago. Trump's assault on the Constitution is just another in his
tirades against the press. "I think the political press is among the
most dishonest people that I have ever met," he told a press conference
last May.
Trump has regularly called the press
"slime," "scum," "dishonest," "sleazy,"
and the "worst human beings" at his campaign rallies. His supporters
greeted his attacks with boos and hisses directed at the members of the press
assigned to his events. NBC News correspondent Katy Tur has covered Trump
since the beginning of his campaign. In an article
this month in Marie Claire, Tur recounted how Trump singled her out
harshly at a rally last December. "It's unlikely, however, that any
of Trump's future attacks will be as scary as what happened in Mount Pleasant
(South Carolina), where the crowd, feeding off Trump, seemed to turn on me like
a large animal, angry and unchained," she wrote. "It wasn't
until hours later, when the Secret Service took the extraordinary step of
walking me to my car, that the incident sank in."
Trump is the candidate of fear and anger.
He has sought to divide the country into winners, those who support him,
and losers--all those who are against him. He has insulted war heroes, the disabled,
Muslims, Mexicans and women. Rather than offering specific solutions he
relies on schoolyard taunts to describe his opponents, like "crooked
Hillary Clinton," "lying Ted Cruz," "little Marco
Rubio," and "low-energy Jeb Bush." His campaign has been
chaotic and disorganized. And now he is sinking in the in the polls, and
many key Republicans are abandoning ship.
Trump is desperate to reboot his campaign,
but he has not changed his tune. Instead, he continues to attack the
press. "If the disgusting and corrupt media covered me honestly and
didn't put false meaning into the words I say, I would be beating Hillary by
20%," he
wrote on Twitter Sunday.
Constitutional law expert Floyd Abrams told CNN Monday, "The very
notion that the press can't say what it wants, or what it thinks is right about
a candidate for president, is at war with the First Amendment."
Trump is at war with more than the First
Amendment. He is the man who masqueraded
as publicist John Miller to
brag about himself to reporters earlier is his career. The thin-skinned
Trump is at war with his advisors over his campaign tactics.
It should come as no surprise that as
Trump is losing ground in the arena of public opinion he blames the messenger.
Maybe it's time to bring John Miller back?
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