Author: The Argonaut

Calling journalists “the enemy of the people” is politically expedient but patently un-American Today’s hyper-polarized, ideology-driven political culture makes it nearly impossible to question, criticize, praise or even simply analyze the words and actions of President Donald Trump without many readers leaping to conclusions about perceived bias and imagined ulterior motives. As an organization that is primarily dedicated to local affairs and has endorsed both Republicans and Democrats for elected office, we ask you to momentarily put such reflexes aside and consider the dangers — both to democratic society and your own mind — of allowing someone who has power over you to dictate what and whom you can or cannot believe. The president’s unrelenting campaign to destabilize, demonize and delegitimize the American free press may energize the most aggrieved among his fervent political base, but it’s a dangerous Machiavellian game that leaves nothing to believe in except power for its own sake. Repeatedly declaring journalists “the enemy of the people” utilizes tactics of the French Revolution’s bloody “reign of terror,” Nazi Germany, Maoist China and the Soviet Union to eliminate dissent and discourage free thought. There could be nothing more un-American. “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...