The Specter of Trump Still Looms - "Which Will Prevail: Trumpism or a Free Press?" (Part 2)
Journalists Must REALISTICALLY Cover What’s at Stake in the 2024 Election – Starting With The Trump-Harris Debate
[This article was originally published at LinkedIn.com. It is part of a series that challenges the mainstream media to be both more aggressive and focused regarding how it covers the Trump campaign, and will also explain how anybody with a social media platform can get involved in protecting our Constitution and democracy from the dangers described in Safeguard.]
Journalists must not let the current exuberance over Kamala Harris' candidacy prevent them from realistically and vigorously confronting the specter of a second Trump term, the possibility of which still which still looms dangerously large. The coverage of the ”joy” surrounding the Harris campaign is symptomatic of what the "Rosen Rule" warns against in that it focuses on the "odds" of who will win the “horse race" of the 2024 election, but takes the focus off of the “stakes”: American democracy itself.
Journalists must not be bound by an archaic code of "professional ethics" from ruthlessly pursuing a line of questioning to get to the core matter of what a candidate might be evading or camouflaging on a matter of this magnitude. Or, as I said at the end of the first article in this series:
Serious journalists have both the opportunity and responsibility to unapologetically ask the right QUESTIONS. And beyond that, they have an equal responsibility to ensure that those questions are answered FORTHRIGHTLY - or to very clearly and forcefully point out when they are not.
The Biden-Trump debate can be used to illustrate the media's abysmal failure to flush out and spotlight the most crucial issues of the 2024 election – and show what types of questions MUST be asked in the upcoming Harris-Trump debate and/or at as many times as possible during the remainder of this election (especially if Trump backs out of the debate itself).
To facilitate this illustration, I am going to use how answering the most critical question asked in the debate was eluded by the candidate. (You might have already read the rest of this article in a previous version before its opening was updated – if so, look for Part 3 of this series when it comes out, or read Part 1 now if you missed it.)
Here is the full and unedited exchange between moderator Dana Bash and Trump regarding the question, “Will you pledge tonight that once all legal challenges have been exhausted that you will accept the results of this election regardless of who wins and you will say right now that political violence in any form is unacceptable?”
Click on the image below to hear the response to the question, which should have taken Donald Trump two seconds to answer, but which he evaded for over five and one-half minutes:
Bash did indeed press Trump for an answer by asking the question three times, providing him with far more than enough opportunity to unequivocally say "yes" - and thus she SOMEWHAT let his evasiveness clarify by itself that he had no intention of answering unambiguously in the affirmative.
But when the question of a candidate is as critical as "Will you accept the results of the election?" the line of questioning after a response other than "Yes, absolutely" should not just stop there, nor should the same question itself simply be regurgitated so that a candidate can mumble variations of similar non-answers.
And the follow-up questions should be ruthlessly vigorous ones.
For example, when Trump or any other candidate slides around this question with responses such as "I'll accept the results of the election if it is fair," the next question should be "Exactly WHO or WHAT will decide what 'fair' means?"
A journalist has a RIGHT TO and MUST emphasize that to decide "what is fair?" is not the prerogative of an individual or group to assume onto themselves, and to thus rip out of the heart of the legitimate legal and electoral processes of the institutions of the United States of America - because in the act of refusing to accept the results of the electoral process a candidate has placed himself OUTSIDE of the boundaries of the democratic system. Any candidate who refuses to acknowledge this basic premise should be excluded from being treated by the standards of traditional "journalistic ethics" or polite "benign objectivity" in his or her campaign for ANY political office in the arena of a democratic republic.
If a candidate refuses to pledge to unequivocally agree to abide by the results of an election, a more ruthlessly probing line of follow-up questioning should go something roughly like this (with the hypothetical particulars here being chosen to counter tactics that Trump and his spokespersons have far too often used and been allowed to get away with):
"EXACTLY WHAT WILL YOU DO if you lose in what the electoral and legal systems deem to be a fair election?"
"Well, there are a lot of people who say ... or might ... " (often accompanied with intimations that “they” might resort to violence).
Trump needs to be called out on using the "there are people who say ..." tactic and be made to answer what HE would do as the potential LEADER of the free world (versus positioning himself as some innocent, ineffectual “follower" of populist mob rule).
The proper follow-up question would be: "The voters have a right to know what YOU think about such a critical issue. They deserve a clear answer to the question. What would you advise those other people who might resort to violence to do?"
"Well, I'd have to see ...""I'll have to see" has to be more forcefully exposed as an illegitimate evasion of such questions - even though Trump has used it to dodge a multitude of issues numerous times during the course of both his previous campaigns and presidency.
The follow up (and last of what would obviously be a variable and more expansive series of questions on the subject) should be: "Your answer right now stands at 'I don't know' or 'I refuse to answer.' I will give you one last chance to clarify your response." At this point, if there is not an unambiguous reply the interviewer should say "I see that you are not going to answer the question" and move on to the next subject.
But the matter can't just be left to just die there. What journalistic institutions should do AFTER the interview when such questions are not answered forthrightly will be explored in the next sections of this series.
The journalistic community (and the American people who rely on them as the "Fourth Estate" of their government) no longer have the luxury of allowing questions which existentially threaten our constitutional system to go unasked, unanswered, evaded or camouflaged.
A free press is the thinking public's window into our democratic processes. It provides the capacity for insight through which the other organs of democracy can be defended and/or reformed. All over the world journalists are enchained and murdered by authoritarian governments. Meanwhile in America, journalists enchain themselves and bind their mission in an archaic code of professional ethics; and by doing so, they risk the very survival of their profession and the democratic soul of the nation.
At the end of the article (Only?) Demented, which was the seed from which this series germinated, I asserted that Donald Trump and all those who want to ride his coattails should be made to clarify the meanings of Trump’s statements which are critical to our constitutional processes, and ended the article with a potential method of inquiry stemming from a series of questions, none of which - most glaringly, and hauntingly – were even asked in the first debate; and which MUST be asked in the upcoming Harris-Trump debates and/or at other times during this election.
Journalists and commentators must figure out a way to probe and analyze Trump's words so that independent voters and his more open-minded, moderate supporters can see through the double talk and understand that Trump is not who they are and what they stand for.
SERIOUS journalists must ask Trump AND HIS SPOKESPERSONS questions [that] go into more detail to flush out what Trump's own words are really intended to convey.
Since 2015 the guise of "contrived theater" has given Trump a free rein to say whatever he has wanted and not be held accountable. Instead of calling Trump "demented" like lemmings parroting the accusation while walking off the cliff into the abyss of authoritarianism, we must start to QUESTION whether Trump is "demented", whether what he is saying is "CONTRIVED nonsense" - [and] take SERIOUSLY and ANALYZE (and make Trump and his spokespersons AND APOLOGISTS IN THE POLITICAL ARENA explain and analyze with us) such statements as: that he would shut down media outlets like Comcast NBC or social media companies he has threatened in the past … and by extension MSNBC … CNN … or Facebook ... or Twitter/X … - and "What do you actually and fully mean when you say you would suspend or terminate parts of the Constitution ("which parts?" - "when, under what circumstances?" - "for how long?" - “for what ultimate purpose?")
And perhaps most importantly: "HOW would you accomplish this LEGALLY from within our system of government?" … and … “What exactly would you replace all of it with?"
Since I wrote (Only?) Demented, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has become more well known as the answer to the question “What exactly would you replace all of it with?" And the Supreme Court rendered its decision regarding presidential immunity, which might have paved the way for how Trump could do it "legally."
Donald Trump’s false denial of “[not] knowing anything” about Project 2025 must be forcefully challenged and exposed in the manner presented in this article. HOW journalists can command forthright answers to such questions will be further developed in subsequent sections of this series.
Here is a link to the first article of this series which more fully explains its philosophical underpinnings regarding updating journalistic ethics in order to counter the authoritarian challenge the profession must help overcome: Which Will Prevail: Trumpism or a Free Press?
Originally published 7-13-2024 at LinkedIn.com.
Thanks for reading “Which Will Prevail: Trumpism or a Free Press?”
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