By Regi Taylor
The Westside Gazette
https://thewestsidegazette.com/
“Threats by Kash Patel, President-elect Trump’s pick for FBI director, to use the power of the bureau to scrutinizenews outlets critical of the incoming administration are sending a chill through the media.”– The Hill, December 11, 2024
By Regi Taylor
“I am your retribution!” At his first 2024 reelection campaign rally on March 25, 2023, in Waco, Texas, former president Donald Trump, pledged to his assembled supporters that on their behalf he would seek ‘retribution’ against “those who have been wronged and betrayed,” meaning himself, if he is returned to the Oval Office.
In a hateful, menacing tone, Trump promised his followers who were carrying placards that read, ‘Witch Hunt: “I am your warrior, I am your justice, I am your retribution.” For anyone tempted to believe Donald Trump was engaging in hyperbole, fifteen months later in June 2024, Trump made the following statement in an interview with talk show host, Dr. Phil: “Revenge does take time, I will say that. And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil. I have to be honest. Sometimes it can.”
Although Donald Trump earned a reputation for unleashing his toddler-like vitriol on a wide cast of characters over the years, showing no discrimination for whom he directs his ire, the one institution he appears to have the strongest affinity for lambasting and demoralizing is the news media. Trump’s declaration after taking office in January 2017 that the press was the “enemy of the American people” sent shockwaves through the political and popular cultures, only for Donald Trump to further amp up his animosity toward news organizations.
During a press conference nineteen months later, on November 7, 2018, Trump directed a tirade against Jim Acosta, a Hispanic CNN White House reporter, for simply asking a question Trump did not like, adding that Acosta was “a rude, terrible person” and suspending his White House press pass. This episode was followed up by Mr. Trump remarking that he might rescind the press credentials of other journalists that didn’t show him proper “respect.” Acosta’s White House pass was restored days later by a judge after a court proceeding.
Also on that Wednesday, November 7, 2018, Mr. Trump attempted to bully highly regarded A African American PBS White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor, referring to a reasonable question she had asked as “racist!” Following up on a recent statement Trump had made declaring himself a “nationalist,” Alcindor asked for clarification whether “some people [might see] that as emboldening white nationalists?” A highly disturbed, emotionally reactive Donald Trump retorted: “I don’t know why you say that. That is such a racist question!”
Two days later, November 9, 2018, still sulking from the imagined slight he felt the CNN and PBS reporters of color had subjected him to, Trump directed his venom at African American reporter, April Ryan, then a 20-year White House veteran correspondent and bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks, referring to her as nasty and stupid, and calling her a “loser” who “doesn’t know what the hell she is doing.”
Apparently, having not fully expelled his angst directed at Ms. Ryan, during that same November 9th press gaggle, Donald Trump refocused his bigoted attention to a distinguished Harvard-trained female African American journalist, Abby Phillips, a CNN White House correspondent. By Trump’s thin-skinned interpretation, Ms. Phillips’ inquiry as to whether Trump wanted acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker to suspend special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ‘Russia-gate’ was viewed as an egregious personal affront.
The snarling offensiveness and full-on condescension Donald Trump lobbed at Abby Phillips in response was more than unwarranted, it was a momentary peek behind the veil of his rabid, racism-influenced contempt for journalists. “What a stupid question that is. What a stupid question. But I watch you a lot. You ask a lot of stupid questions,” was the bad-intentioned rhetoric Trump hurled back at the reporter.
Despite unrelenting attacks against every major print and broadcast news organization over the last ten years, including his favored propaganda network, Fox News, Mr. Trump has focused his most virulent attacks on the Black Press, specifically targeting female African American reporters.
Donald Trump’s racist propensity to denigrate Black female reporters is so pathological that despite being in the middle of his recent reelection campaign where he pathetically courted the ‘Black’ electorate using blatantly racist tropes and slight-of-hand media tactics, he could not contain his bigotry long enough to complete an interview before the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) without sabotaging his appearance.
Not only was Trump uncouth and remiss by grossly insulting his Afro-Asian American female political opponent, Kamala Harris, in the presence female African American journalists, he directed repeated insults at those same journalists, particularly his hostess and moderator, ABC News’ Rachel Scott, repeatedly calling her “nasty.”
As one who is perpetually hellbent on payback, I suspect Trump accepted the invitation to appear before NABJ in the first place to avenge the letter of condemnation the association issued six years earlier in response to the candidate’s 2018 attacks on April Ryan and Abby Phillips. Donald Trump is that hateful.
This ominous cycle of events brings us full circle to Donald Trump’s dubious inauguration in less than three weeks, and with it the remaking of an America that only the eldest among us might crudely recognize. It doesn’t require a reading of the tea leaves or a rocket scientist’s analysis of the data to understand where Donald and MAGA intend to take America – back, way back.
Trump’s unbridled disdain for journalists as enemies of the people, coupled with his perception that political opposition by the Black press who overwhelmingly supported Joe Biden, and then Kamala Harris, constituting flagrant disloyalty, makes the Black press prominent among his enemies and therefore to be targeted for the retribution and revenge he has been promising to wield.
The already financially challenged Black news industry, consistent with the generally declining news industry overall due to changes in demographics, nontraditional shifts in how younger generations access and consume news and information, and a precipitous decline in youth reading proficiency, makes Black journalism particularly vulnerable to whatever sinister response may come from the new administration’s certain anti-press crusade.
The Supreme Court’s decision to untether Donald Trump from any legal restraints, literally including political assassination, and most of the Republican party having been cowed, becoming unabashedly submissive to MAGA, demonstrating their fealty by routinely rubber-stamping Trump’s draconian policies and pronouncements, it is anyone’s guess what vicious tactics might be employed to neutralize news media critics in general and the strongly Democrat-leaning national African American news apparatus in particular.
The stage is set to openly make America hate again.
