Every American journalist we have ever met is in love, almost obsessively, with the idea of America. So yes, Cape Cod Wave is “colluding” with news media across America today to publicly state what we naively thought was obvious: the media is not the enemy of the American people.
How is it possible that news organizations across the country feel compelled to say this in 2018? And why are we, little Cape Cod Wave Magazine, who prefer to cover surfers and guitar players, bothering to join such a nationwide statement?
We are Americans. We love this country. And we are worried.
When the President of the United States refers to journalists as “the enemy of the people,” we know he isn’t talking about Cape Cod Wave. Or is he?
We don’t remember exactly how slippery slopes work, but we do know of one elected Cape Cod politician that blocked Cape Cod Wave from following him on Twitter, the same as President Trump has blocked many people (who then sued him) on Twitter.
A Twitter block is an argument for others. Frankly, we laughed when we were Twitter-blocked by the politician. But some things are not so humorous.
The escalating war on the media by this White House has followed a scary playbook we recall from high school history classes about fascism.
We are Americans. We love this country. And we are worried.
There is one word that President Trump likes to use that we find the most frightening of all, especially in the way he uses it.
That scary word is, “loyalty.”
It feels to us like President Trump’s love for this particular word and concept, loyalty, and his war on the media, are directly related.
Journalists covering the White House do what 300 million Americans cannot do – they question elected authority. President Trump’s version of loyalty seems to demand that journalist do not question his authority.
This bashing of journalists, as many have pointed out, happens in dictatorships.
It scares us. It should scare you.
The world does not have to be a zero-sum game, as the President often seems to believe. It is not made up of only winners and losers.
But the world is made up of facts.
And one fact is that journalists, those people asking questions of the highest authority in the land, are American patriots.
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See also, from February 2017, our first pass at this unfortunate subject – President Trump & The Media, An Editorial.
