Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
There is great anger in our Country caused in part by inaccurate, and even fraudulent, reporting of the news. The Fake News Media, the true Enemy of the People, must stop the open & obvious hostility & report the news accurately & fairly. That will do much to put out the flame...
8:03 AM - Oct 29, 2018 133K 85.9K people are talking about this
This above tweet by President Trump was enough to draw the ire of a conservative publication, which was refreshing. Hardly anything about the past two years and change, since Donald Trump received the official nomination for the White House by the GOP, has been nearly as disheartening as the Republican embrace of all things Donald Trump. This disgraceful man was suddenly forgiven all of his trespasses once he provided the Republicans with an election win at the highest level.
Since then, they have become apologists and even deniers for all of the vile things that he says or does. Sometimes, some Republicans have stood up and mildly denounced Trump when he really went over the edge to the point that even supposedly responsible GOP leaders could not simply embrace, such as when he incited violence, or when he seemed to have problems condemning white nationalists and Nazis when they marched in the streets of an American city with shields and weapons, and incited violence.
Still, as quickly as they might condemn him for things that they know they would not be able to get away with not condemning him for, they are usually quite tolerant of almost everything else that he does. They might put up some mild, mostly symbolic questions or concerns, but they do not offer any serious criticisms of him when he has proven to be such an energizing force for their party. And so, a lot of his abnormal and, frankly, unacceptable behavior, they just conveniently turn a blind eye to, and let pass.
Yet, there are some, even among conservatives, who are alarmed with Trump's excesses. I have always said that I do not believe that either major party is actually driven by ideology. For all of the alarmist talk about the Republicans being too conservative or the Democrats being too liberal, the fact of the matter is that both parties have a watered down ideology at best. In the case of most of the prominent elected officials, it is more about the money that they can obtain, the sponsors that help get them elected and give them their positions of power. I can disagree with some aspects of conservatism, for example, but recognize that many of the people who proudly proclaim themselves to be conservatives today actually have no idea what conservatism is, or what it used to be, not so long ago. The same could be said for liberalism. In neither case is it written that all of these noble sounding principles should simply go away in order to appease big moneyed interests, and to tow the party line no matter what, regardless of whether or not it is what is best for the country or not.
That was why I was glad to see that there are conservatives out there who take Trump to task for using this unacceptable phrase. Referring to anyone as the ‘Enemy Of The People,’ like Trump does with the press, is to suggest that he has the power to define who is a good American, versus a bad American or, to take that even further, to define who is an American, versus who is not an American. And isn't Trump right now in the midst of a controversy regarding a similar matter, trying to defy the Constitution and get rid of birthright citizenship?
On many levels, Trump is trying to define people out of their citizenship. It is wrong, and it is encouraging to see that some conservatives recognize, specifically, that the use of the phrase 'Enemy of the People' is dangerous and wrong, and has only been used by despots and dictators of the worst kind before. Robespierre, among others, used it during the days of the French Revolution, in order to liquidate opposition. Stalin used the phrase as well for the same purposes. Hitler and the Nazis also used the same phrase, also to target and eliminate political opposition. Mao also used the same phrase in China during the deadliest period of his bloody reign.
In short, it is not a phrase that an American president who swore to took the oath to uphold the Constitution, and who supposedly is protecting and preserving American democracy, should be using. especially one who promised to be the 'president for all Americans' like Trump promised to be on the night when he won the 2016 election.
It was refreshing to see a conservative publication clearly and unequivocally hold Trump to task for the use of this dark and clearly loaded phrase. I applaud them in so doing, and hope that you will take a look at this article, which I attached the link to below. No, I am not myself a conservative in the way that it is defined in this country today. However, when there is common ground to be found, we can, and should, work together to eliminate the problem. And in this case, I think any reasonable American should recognize that under no circumstances is it acceptable for an American president to define other Americans as as 'Enemy of the People.'
Let's preserve some basic standards together. We can do that much.
‘Enemy Of The People’? Shut Up, Trump By ROD DREHER • October 29, 2018:
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