Trump doesn't want a free press; he wants free propaganda.

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/opinion/trump-rally-fake-news.html

Afraid? Weak? Egotistical? Attack!
Trump doesn’t want a free press; he wants free propaganda.
By Charles M. Blow
Aug. 1, 2018


President Trump arriving in Florida for a campaign rally. Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times

....

This “fake news” nonsense isn’t really about the dissemination of false information. If it were, the administration could demand a correction and would receive one from any reputable news outlet.

No, Trump has made a perversion of the word “fake,” particularly among his most ardent supporters, so that it has come to mean news stories he doesn’t like, commentary that is unflattering to him and inadequate coverage of what he views as positive news about him and his administration.

Trump doesn’t want a free press; he wants free propaganda.

He gets it from his friends at Fox News, but that isn’t enough. This wannabe authoritarian needs two scoops. So he uses the power of the presidency to produce his own propaganda, to invent facts and twist news.

This seems to work mostly among his own Republican base, but for him that’s the point. The entire Trump presidency is about repayment to the most devout: the white nationalists, the Christian nationalists, the ethnonationalists.

They believe that America was founded as a white, Christian nation and should be governed as one. They pine over lost culture and lost heritage. They rage against blossoming minority groups and immigrants.

This is a Republican base governed by fear, and it has found its perfect apostle in Trump — a man who sells fear, gorges on it, bathes in it.

Trump and his base are like two mirrors facing each other.

....

[SunSeeker]

1. Every time I see a Secret Service agent around Trump, I think...

Would they really take a bullet for that piece of shit?

Of course, the answer is yes. Because they are committed professional public servants, unlike Trump.

[democratisphere]

2. Already has free propaganda with fox, rush, hannity, rudy,

"Q" and a host of others. Truth and facts are being annihilated!

[Dulcinea]

3. This.

"Journalism is printing what the powerful wish to keep hidden; everything else is public relations." --Attributed to George Orwell