President Trump punched a bully in the mouth at his press conferences last week and the bully is not happy about that at all. The bully is the press, more specifically the mainstream media.
During his marathon press conference, Trump said: “Tomorrow, they will say: ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press,'” Trump said. “I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people. But — but I’m not ranting and raving. I love this. I’m having a good time doing it.”
And he was right.
Almost immediately CNN, MSNBC, and even a few from FOX News cried foul and accused the President of attacking the 1st Amendment. It was as though Trump had launched an attack on free speech that had never been seen before. In truth, it’s the political left that has been systematically seeking to repress free speech using the media as a smokescreen for the real culprit – the Left.
Freedom of speech is under unprecedented attack at practically every level of government. From college campuses to Washington, the political left has been working overtime to silence any dissenting voice that opposes its vision of reshaping America.
Nowhere is this more evident that in the way the press had fought back since the President called many of them out. For years, liberal politicians have been aided and abetted by a press that claims to be champions of free speech while refusing to report that the real enemy of the 1st Amendment is the left.
Steve Bannon, a close advisor to the President, warns that this conflict between Trump and news organizations like CNN will not be over quickly.
“[The press] are corporatist globalist media that are adamantly opposed to an economic nationalist agenda like Donald Trump has,” said the former Breitbart chief in a speech at CPAC.
“Here’s where it’s going to get worse,” Bannon said. “He’s going to continue to press his agenda. And, as economic conditions get better, as more jobs get better, they’re going to continue to fight. If you think they’re going to give you their country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken. Every day it is going to be a fight.”
Much has been made about Trump’s refusal to call on reporters from CNN and other obviously Anti-Trump media outlets and changing who gets to sit where. At the same time, CNN and others are silent about Obama’s attack of FOX news in 2010 that went to the level of his aids arguing that FOX should be excluded from news conferences altogether.
Just seven years ago the Obama Justice Department harassed, investigated, and prosecuted reporters when it secretly seized emails and phone records of Fox News reporter James Rosen and phone logs of Associated Press reporters and editors. Former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, said the move by Obama was “the most aggressive” attack on press freedom since Watergate.
Kirsten Powers, formerly with FOX News and a liberal says that there are many in the left that will do whatever they can to silence opposition. In her recent book, The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech, she calls attention to the real enemy of free speech.
Her words are chilling:
“Liberals are supposed to believe in diversity, which should include diversity of thought and belief. Instead, an alarming level of intolerance emanates from the left side of the political spectrum toward people who express views that don’t hew to the ‘settled’ liberal world view. The passion for silencing isn’t reserved for conservatives or orthodox Christians. Moderate Democrats, independent-minded liberals, and the ideologically agnostic becomes targets if they deviate on liberal sacred cow issues.”
Powers believes that the liberal left has abandoned its once-firm stand on freedom of speech and now actively seeks to silence any dissenting voice. “Dissent from liberal orthodoxy is cast as racism, misogyny, phobia, and, as we’ve seen, even violence,” writes Powers.
America is seeing the result of years of liberal education. The college campus has become ground zero for stamping out freedom of speech. Terms like speech codes, free speech zones, trigger warnings, and micro-aggressions are nothing more than administration approved and protected active assault on free speech.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that the mainstream media is insulted by President Trump’s blunt words. For too long it has portrayed itself as the fifth column guardian of the 1st Amendment while all the time promoting those who hate free speech the most.
~ Conservative Zone
