Back in the X-USA
TUCSON — I flew direct to Phoenix from Paris just before elections. Barely seconds after approaching a Global Entry face-recognition camera, an immigration guy 100 feet away yelled, "Mort?" I nodded. He waved me through.
Cool, I thought. With such streamlined technology, new leaders could help steer America and the world beyond toward prosperous sanity. But voters chose authoritarians with different plans.
I flashed back to all the times some uniformed goon studied my passport, ran his thumb down a list, and said, "Step this way." Whether that was followed by sir, monsieur, señor or just a hard look, bad days would likely follow.
Gloating buffoons who think they "own the libs" need to read Orwell. Pigs who walk upright rule an Animal Farm by duping beasts of burden. They expel unwanted species and keep order with free-rein attack dogs rewarded for their zeal.
Donald Trump intends to meld the three branches of government into a single weapon of retribution. That leaves only the Fourth Estate, a free press doing its essential job, to protect the people presidents are sworn to serve. And he is on a tear.
Plenty of deep-digging journalists do their jobs well. Leaks from the House Ethics Committee forced Matt Gaetz to slink away. Still, Pam Bondi is a former prosecutor and ex-Foxhound plainly committed to Trumplican unholy war. She may be worse.
Trump pledges to jail reporters and their bosses if they won't reveal sources. He tells cheering crowds that when inmates make them "brides" — rape them — they'll beg to repent. An assassin's bullet would first strike "fake news" people around him, he says, and he's fine with that.
He is suing CBS for $10 billion over a Kamala Harris interview on "60 Minutes." He says he will investigate NBC for treason. His own "Truth Social" posts are the ravings of an unhinged tyrant. Here's one:
"CBS...just committed the Greatest Fraud in Broadcast History. CBS should lose its license, and it should be bid out to the Highest Bidder, as should all other Broadcast Licenses because they are just as corrupt as CBS — and maybe even WORSE!"
Steve Bannon is back with his old watchword: "Flood the zone with shit." Partisan media empires buy up newspapers and broadcasters, while online liars savage truth, dwarfing the reach of credible news organizations.
If that doesn't scare you witless, you're not paying attention.
Big lies convinced voters that Trump would do better on the economy. Hard facts show that is absurd considering the Covid hecatomb his self-obsessed inaction caused after a nearly $2 trillion tax cut for the rich.
The National Institutes of Health calculated that by November 2020 the pandemic cost the nation more than $16 trillion, with more lost to related disruptions. That, it said, was "greatest blow to prosperity and well-being in America since the Great Depression."
A new administration spent heavily to repair the damage. Today, while other major economies flatline, America thrives with full employment, controlled inflation, rising markets and healthy growth. Inequalities are inevitable no matter who is president.
Far too much is at stake to synthesize. But a focus on Phoenix reflects my biggest fears:
Climate collapse, which Trump denies as he pushes for yet more fossil fuel, was barely mentioned in the campaign. If the United States does not lead by example, long-term odds for human survival amount to a popsicle's chance on an Arizona car hood in June.
Trump's plan to turn the Justice Department and federal agencies into his personal hit squads. With Marjorie Taylor Greene on the Homeland Security Committee, her past reference to Hitler's "Gazpacho" is suddenly less amusing.
As elections approached, lawyers in Phoenix were suing the city for two cases alleging police brutality that could cost municipal taxpayers millions.
Officers mistook Michael Kenyon, 30, for a robbery suspect who matched his description: a white man in shorts. Baffled at his arrest, he pressed for an explanation.
Four cops pushed him facedown onto asphalt, in cuffs, on a 114-degree July day.
He was so badly cooked after four minutes that he spent a month in hospital with third-degree burns and painful rehabilitation. A woman in a nearby apartment videoed the arrest after hearing screams she thought was an animal being tortured.
ABC15, a local affiliate, broke the story. CBS's short piece noted Phoenix had 100 straight days of triple-digit temperatures this year, a new normal. A few other outlets reported it. But I found only two major newspapers, both in Britain, that took notice.
Dave Biscobing at ABC15 dug deep into that encounter as well as the second one last month.
A Circle K cashier called police about a white man causing trouble. When two cops accosted the man, he pointed to a black passerby who he claimed had assaulted him. Without checking further, they pounced on Tyron McAlpin, who fit their profiling.
Video shows a brief scuffle before they Tasered him repeatedly and punched him at least a dozen times before hauling him off to jail. McAlpin is deaf with cerebral palsy. He didn't hear barked orders and was confused because he had done nothing wrong.
McAlpin's attorneys say police filed false reports alleging he committed aggravated assault and stole one officer's cellphone. The the county attorney released him with no charges after three weeks.
In terse statements, the Phoenix Police Department said it is investigating both cases. So are the Feds in a big way.
The Department of Justice released a 126-page report in June, compiled over three years, that excoriates Phoenix police. It said they "systematically use excessive illegal force." It recommends federal oversight.
The DOJ said officers discriminate against Hispanics, blacks, Native Americans and people with disabilities. Among other abuses, it reported, they use excessive force against lawful demonstrations and protests.
Biscobing and a colleague produced a painfully graphic video summing up the DOJ findings with links to the full report, related stories and their own digging over the past three years. Several top police officials resigned after their segments aired.
It is courageous work. After Inauguration Day, he'll be needing to watch his back.
A lot of Americans persist in reducing a complex business into "the media." Phoenix is a big city with some good coverage but not enough. In rural areas, news deserts are often barren. Hardly anyone reports on West Virginia's controversial coal industry.
Even the best national news media have their weaknesses. But committed journalists are on the job. To effect change, attentive readers, listeners and viewers need to act on what they reveal.
During 50 unsettling minutes, Terry Gross on NPR interviewed David Remnick, who edits The New Yorker after long reporting in the Soviet Union, and Marty Baron, former executive editor of The Washington Post, now a wise observer of the trade.
Remnick said people are prone to dismiss Trump bombast as performance art. But when he apes Stalin's phrase, enemies of the people, he means it. His first term left deep scars. As a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists, Remnick sees its focus shifting from abuses abroad to outrages in America.
Baron added that Trump targets more than the press. His ambition is to stamp out free expression by everyone. "He'll use every tool in the toolbox, and there are a lot of tools," he said before reeling off a litany of what to expect:
Pressuring owners and advertisers; jailing reporters who shield sources; libel suits; reversing New York Times v. Sullivan, which limits public figures' right to sue for defamation; defunding public radio; making Voice of America a propaganda outlet.
After Jeff Bezos killed a Kamala Harris editorial endorsement, Post subscribers cancelled en masse. That, Baron said, played into Trump's hands. Fewer readers see hard-hitting reportage, which is independent of the opinion pages.
He called it a travesty for people to boast about their principled shunning of a crucial national daily on Elon Musk's X-Twitter, now by far the foremost disseminator of toxic partisan cant and crazy conspiracy.
Trump told Lesley Stahl on CBS at the outset that he undermined the press so that people won't believe negative things they read about him. Recently, he hailed that as one of his greatest successes. He was right.
Lying is hardly new to Washington, Remnick said, but Trump has taken a cue from Vladimir Putin to change the game. "When there is no truth," he explained, "everything is possible."
In earlier days, Soviet leaders censored everything from the top down, sending critics to gulags at great expense. Putin has found that a few top-level public arrests or highly publicized murders of politicians warns the whole system to lay low.
The answer, both agreed, is for serious-minded news organizations to keep at it, adopting new technologies to engage wider audiences. They can link to original documents and datasets so readers can follow up on their own.
But neither brimmed with optimism. With economic pressures and competition from ill-informed "influencers" on all-over-the-place social media, the Fourth Estate rests on shaky pillars.
Back when the threat was only George W. Bush, a doofus president pushed to extremes by neo-cons zealots, Samuel L. Jackson banged on alarm bells with a battle cry: "Wake the fuck up!" This is no time to be sleeping.
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Trump, Journalism & The Rough Road Ahead
https://www.npr.org/2024/11/20/1214145096/david-remnick-marty-baron-trump-media