Over the past three years, we have heard it said repeatedly by a politician named Trump that the free press is the “enemy of the people.” This is outrageous, and my blood runs cold whenever I hear this, especially when it is said by a man who sits in the White House, watching Fox News and tweeting. It is especially chilling to hear assaults on the media coming from a man who is a compulsive liar e.g., Saudia Arabia is not the most important supplier of our oil supply, Canada is. Canada supplies 40% of our oil imports, Saudia Arabia supplies 9%.).
Freedom of the press is an integral element of democracy. The press keeps us informed and holds politicians accountable. Like them or not, agree with them or not, they deserve the support and protection to write, think, speak, and report without fear.
The petty tyrant temporarily in the White House expects adulation. His skin is too thin for the job. Harry S Truman memorably said, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Presidents and public officials get criticized. That’s part of their job.
The phrase “Enemy of the People” is known best as the title of a play by Henrik Ibsen. The doctor in a small town discovers that the waters of the local spa are contaminated. He wants to tell the truth. He is warned by those in power that telling the truth will ruin the town’s economy. If he knows what is good for him, he will remain silent. By telling the truth, he is dangerous. He is “an enemy of the people.” I read the play in college, along with Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” a powerful play about feminism.
The phrase is best known in the 20th century for its usage in the Soviet Union, where Lenin labeled opponents as “enemies of the people.” How curious to see Trump adopting the language of Lenin and Stalin. Any coverage that he does not like he calls “fake news.” He wants his base to disbelieve whatever is reported, unless he tells them it is okay. He wants to be the arbiter of truth and fact. He has the instincts of a dictator.
Trump’s efforts to silence the press is about the most contemptible element of his war against the Constitution and our democracy. When I hear Trump’s mobs chanting “CNN Sucks,” it is disgusting.
I am thankful to journalists everywhere for reporting without fear or favor. We have to have their backs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Every time I feel like I’m losing hope, you reel me back in again. Once again, thank you!
Agree with you GregB.
Thank you, Diane.
Thank you Diane & all her readers who value local government fact-based news & up the governmental levels. I wrote front page news about schools, race relations for a daily in KY and even about Kennedy’s assination for The Michigan Daily. And My husband Paul was a many time judge for Pulitzer Prizes. And retired as professor emeritus in journalism. The media is human beings who try for honesty in journalism and sometimes fail but try to admit mistakes and correct them. Really. Support real news outlets with your cash. Free news soon becomes corrupted by someone and where will democracy be then?
I posted this at OEN… https://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/I-Am-Thankful-for-Freedom-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Democracy_Diane-Ravitch_Freedom_Freedom-Of-Speech-181122-469.html#comment717579
I hope we survive this monster!
You mentioned to me, recently, how the memory of Mussolini rears its head.
You are an historian with real memory and knowledge, but also, like me, you actually lived back when the impossible happened.
Those of us who lived back then have knowledge of the context that enabled a Mussolini.. So it was no surprisde, when Katrin Bennhold asks (in the Sunday Review): “Can we learn from history without having lived it ourselves. and on line she spoke of how ignorance of history is at play. “Politicians are apt to use history selectively when it suits them. But the history in this case is ominous.
Can Europe’s Liberal Order Survive as the Memory of War Fades? – The New York Times
“To some it feels that Europe’s bloody last century might as well be the Stone Age.”
From that piece: “In the aftermath of their cataclysmic wars, Europeans banded together in shared determination to subdue the forces of nationalism and ethnic hatred with a vision of a European Union. But today, its younger generations have no memory of industrialized slaughter. Instead, their consciousness has been shaped by a decade-long financial crisis, an influx of migrants from Africa and the Middle East, and a sense that the promise of a united Europe is not delivering.”
“The more important constitutional question is whether Congress legislate and reassert congressional authority that has lain dormant for decades. They now control the most powerful and representative institution of government. House members wield the power to inhibit policies they oppose and to leverage that authority to insist on those they favor. Democrats should act like it rather than orienting themselves around the presidency as though it, and Mr. Trump, were the be-all and end-all of American politics.”
Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and author of our Declaration of Independence that forms our nation’s ideological foundation, declared in 1787 that “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” And Founding Father John Adams, one of the key creators of our Constitution, declared to future generations of Americans that “The liberty of the Press is essential to the Security of the State.” Attacks on America’s free press are attacks on the security of America’s democracy.
These days you can hear the phrase “Lugenpresse” being shouted out at Trump’s political rallies. That shouting is a warning of danger for our democracy. Josef Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, invented the phrase “Lugenpresse,” which means “lying press,” about the German media because one of the first things a chronic liar like Hitler needs to do is to destroy people’s trust in the media that reveal his lies. By destroying the German people’s trust in the nation’s free press, Hitler was able to lie his way to his rule that led to Germany’s ruin in World War ll.
When “60 Minutes” reporter Leslie Stahl asked Trump why he accuses the press of “fake news” when the reports about him are based on documented fact, Trump answered: “I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
Yes for FREEDOM of the PRESS…AGREE.
Love this one by Krashen.
Published in the Los Angeles Times, November 22, 2018
The approach David Kirp describes for math education (“How better teachers are made,” Nov. 16) is certainly an improvement. But even major improvements in teaching will not overcome the effects of poverty, unquestionably the strongest factor in school achievement.
Poverty’s effects include food deprivation, insufficient health care, and little access to reading material, each related to school success. The best teaching in the world won’t help when students are hungry, ill, and have nothing to read.
We must deal with poverty: 42% of American children live in families without enough income to cover basics. (NOTE: This sentence was not included in the published version of the letter.)
Until poverty is eliminated, school must protect students from poverty’s impact by investing more in food programs, health care, and libraries.
Martin Luther King came to the same conclusion: “We are likely to find that the problems of housing and education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.”
Stephen Krashen
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/readersreact/la-ol-le-jaime-escalante-math-teachers-20181122-story.html
“The petty tyrant temporarily in the White House expects adulation. ”
Yeah, that’s what he is, a temporary president, Don Temp.
Let’s just hope he is not a long term temp: Long Tremp
The media is controlled by the government in Malaysia. I stopped reading the local paper because it was filled with overly sweet pandering towards the wonderful, great leader who could do no wrong. It reminds me of the goofy fluff that comes in emails daily from the WH.
It is illegal to write anything against the prime minister. You will get put in jail.
Trump would love being a leader in Malaysia. The problem is that it is a Muslim led country. At least my friends don’t have to endure the misery of driving past Trump’s golf resorts.