I take 45s comments Press personally OP/ED

[KevinM1]

Fox News/Fox Business does propaganda for the Republicans.
MSNBC does propaganda for the Democrats.
CNN does propaganda for both.

Other presidents have attacked the First Amendment but they are far better at hiding it than Donald Trump. For some reason, it takes a president of the party that a person doesn't like to get into the Oval Office for that individual to see the abuses of power in the halls of power. They all do it but Donald Trump is so brazen about it and he is so incompetent that's it's hard to miss.

I belive there was one statistic which said that Barack Obama jailed more whistle blowers than all previous administrations combined. Donald Trump is merely continuing the authoritarian trend. People didn't seem to care so much when it was Obama doing the attacks. Why?

I don’t think that criticizing the press is the same as limiting free speech. In fact they are very much not the same thing.  Trying to equate criticism to an authoritarian regime seems as bad as Brian’s comparisons above.

Trump has ever had an actual criticism.  He simply decries anything that paints him in an unfavorable light as 'fake news', and has at least on one occasion labeled mainstream media as the enemy of the people (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/stat...3516632065).  He's also threatened to revoke media access to outlets that don't cover him favorably (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/stat...4436596736).  During his presidential campaign, he mused about loosening libel laws so he could sue 'fake news' over unfavorable coverage (https://twitter.com/NavigatingTrump/stat...4167017477).  There's also the continued 'fake news' gas lighting campaign itself, which has too many direct links for me to post.

This isn't normal.  It's not what countries not sliding towards authoritarianism do.  And, I mean, let's not be naive here.  His alt-right stewards are even more forceful in their comments about the press, including encouraging people to start gunning down journalists on sight (https://observer.com/2018/06/milo-yianno...ists-down/ ... no, I don't buy his lame 'explanation' of simply trolling, and, regardless, in the current climate, encouraging violence is the last thing anyone should do, jokingly or not).

If none of this bothers you, then, frankly, you have willingly buried your head in the sand.  We're sliding towards fascism.  It's obvious to anyone who bothers to look.