Eric Boehlert’s newsletter today points out the dainty way the press describes the outgoing president’s attempt to reduce the United States of America to a tin-pot dictatorship, one nation under Trump:
Instead of referring to his treasonous post-election behavior surrounding the would-be coup by a power-hungry authoritarian out to steal an election, we get news updates about Trump’s “tactics,” his vague “moves” and “chicanery”; his legal “strategy” and “power play” while “sulking” and “brooding” inside the White House. None of that captures the historic events that have unfolded since Election Day. Events that if they occurred in a foreign country would be covered much differently by the American press.
The idea that Trump’s harmlessly wandering the West Wing in a funk, despondent over his loss doesn’t match reality. In truth, Trump has spent weeks, with laser-like focus, actively trying to engineer the open theft of a presidential contest. He’s dispatched an army of lawyers who are committed to throwing out as many legitimate U.S. votes as possible. When that has proven to be a failure, he’s shifted to getting state Republicans to block or delay the certification of the popular votes in their states. And much of the Republican Party supports him, either publicly or tacitly by standing by and watching.
Were these events to unfold in a foreign land an ocean away, the more militant of congressional Republicans would call for sanctions against such a country and for arms sales to its neighbors. (Have Canada or Mexico asked?) They would hold forth for C-SPAN cameras in their chambers or preach before reporters in Capitol hallways of their undying faith in the power of democracy to deliver the fruits of freedom to the oppressed in less-God-blessed nations. They would issue principle-laden statements on their websites and in fundraising letters. They would bask, not to put it daintily, in the warm glow of their own exceptionalist glory.
For now, they cower. Feckless cowards before an even bigger coward.
“Trump’s baseless argument that this is still an election up for grabs was prevalent in interviews with Republicans across the country on Friday,” the New York Times reported and Jay Rosen noted, tweeting, “A counter-majoritarian party has to be counter-factual too. The conflict with journalism is structural.”
Boehlert concludes:
Authoritarianism has been on display for weeks now, as Trump throws all his energy into casting doubt over free and fair elections in the world’s oldest democracy. The daily news coverage needs to say so, and drop the idea that Trump’s simply passing his days feeling sorry for himself, in a state of “denial.” He’s been waging a multi-pronged war on America.
From the shadows. One hopes Trump’s beefy, blustery, gun-toting foot soldiers are equally inept and cowardly.