Letter of the Week:
A response to readers defending Trump’s ICE kidnappings
“The Googlebot says, ‘The “fourth pillar of democracy” is the press or media, acting as the “fourth estate” alongside the other three pillars: the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Its role is to inform the public, promote transparency, hold the government accountable, and act as a watchdog over the other branches of government. This is essential for the healthy functioning of a democracy.’
In other words, an informed populace is essential for democracy to survive. Because how do people know who to vote for without knowing their true intentions? How do we know which policies to support without seeing their effects? If we want a free country, we must know the facts.
If you believe every arrested immigrant is a criminal, you have not been informed—you’ve been influenced. Reputable news outlets have published dozens of stories featuring law-abiding tax-paying people on various stages of our legal pathway to citizenship, and even full United States citizens, seized and held for weeks in abusive conditions while their jobs get taken or their businesses crumble, or deported to lose everything, totally against the law. If you haven’t heard of this, you’re not informed. You are influenced.
You are influenced to feel righteousness in your country treating people so badly whether it’s legal or not, and feel proud to vote for the politicians who do that.
It’s kind o’ hard to tell, sometimes, what’s factual news. There are actual propaganda machines calling themselves news outlets, breaking every journalistic ethic, spouting untruth after lie, twisting public opinion and influencing elections.
[Some] claim most newspapers and ‘legacy news’ are one-sided and suppress the Republican side. I say there’s a difference between refusing to quote a politician and and catching one in in a lie. I hear NPR quoting Republicans all the time, often with caveats like, ‘did not provide proof’ or, ‘this was proved false.’ And look what Republicans did about it—rather than clean up their act, they stripped emergency alerts, community bulletins, local news, high-school events reporting, in some cases any radio at all, from millions of rural Americans. If you were unaware of that, you are influenced, not informed.
Catching more Republicans than Democrats in a lie does not necessarily indicate a liberal bias. It could simply mean there are more Republicans who lie. It’s our responsibility as freedom-loving citizens to look carefully for, and insist upon, the truth.
The fourth pillar’s main function is to keep politicians honest for us, and to keep politics transparent. Claims that respected ethical news organizations are that biased are anti-truth propaganda, and any politician or mouthpiece who shuns honest fact-checking is up to no good.
It is vitally important for the citizenry of a democracy to know the difference between factual news and avaricious lies passed off as news. The easiest test is to ask yourself: Is this messenger appealing to my emotions, or to my intellect? If they are trying to make you feel outraged, or fearful, cheated, or whatever powerful emotion, chances are they’re an influencer, not an informer. If you disbelieve it, just ask ’em. They’ll tell you whatever keeps making them money, assure you it’s true in fact, and refuse to show you any proof.
Informers just state the facts and leave how you feel about them up to you. Informers want you to think. Influencers don’t, they want you to feel.
Secondly, [some] seem to feel that President Trump is not suppressing our freedom of the press. Nothing could be further from the truth. For an in-depth analysis of just one example of media suppression, [here’s] The Poynter Institute. …
Thirdly, the influencer’s lies get spread. [Some] have lied for President Trump, trying to believe he is being transparent, like a healthy democracy needs. He does not ‘hold many informal and formal press conferences several times a day.’ And impromptu, never-a-straight-answer shouting sessions, not informative press conferences.
Lastly, I didn’t see [them] really disputing the actual definitions of fascist, authoritarian, totalitarian, autocrat. Rather, [they] deny that they apply to President Trump. Political science experts the world over say, unquestionably, they do. …
So, what’re ya gonna do? Remain a Trumpist denialist while he derails our democracy? Or take a stand for our liberty, for which many Americans have sacrificed their very lives, so—in the words of our first Republican President— ‘that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’?“
— Dixon S.