The demagoguery that has become a key element of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign is no laughing matter, and it’s time that media put him in check, the New York Times editorial board declared Tuesday.
The paper’s increasingly hostile tone toward the Republican front-runner comes after a week of headlines going back and forth over whether Trump had called for the creation of a database to monitor Muslims in the United States.
“America has just lived through another presidential campaign week dominated by Donald Trump’s racist lies,” the Times said. “In the Republican field, Mr. Trump has distinguished himself as fastest to dive to the bottom. If it’s a lie too vile to utter aloud, count on Mr. Trump to say it, often. It wins him airtime, and retweets through the roof.”
Political demagogues are nothing new, as certain office-seekers have long sought to build themselves up by tearing others down, they added. Trump is just the latest iteration of this ugly truth.
To drive this point home, the editorial board compared Trump’s campaign trail rhetoric to remarks from controversial political figures of the past.
Here’s Donald Trump on Sunday: “When the Syrian refugees are going to start pouring into this country, we don’t know if they’re ISIS, we don’t know if it’s a Trojan horse. And I definitely want a database and other checks and balances. We want to go with watch lists. We want to go with databases. And we have no choice. We have no idea who’s being sent in here. This could be the — it’s probably not, but it could be the great Trojan horse of all time, where they come in.”
Here’s Joseph McCarthy in 1950: “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down — they are truly down.”
Here’s Donald Trump last Tuesday: “We’re going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we’re going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago.”
Here’s George Wallace in 1963: “We must redefine our heritage, re-school our thoughts in the lessons our forefathers knew so well, in order to function and to grow and to prosper. We can no longer hide our head in the sand and tell ourselves that the ideology of our free fathers is not being attacked and is not being threatened by another idea … for it is.”
The editorial argued that social media has given Trump an enormous platform to spread misinformation practically unchecked. It also complained that despite his penchant for spreading falsehoods, Trump enjoys an almost constant presence on news networks.
For these reasons, they added, it’s on media to challenge the Republican candidate constantly, and to call him out whenever he peddles a questionable statistic of outright false claim.
“This isn’t about shutting off Mr. Trump’s bullhorn. His right to spew nonsense is protected by the Constitution, but the public doesn’t need to swallow it,” the editorial concluded. “History teaches that failing to hold a demagogue to account is a dangerous act. It’s no easy task for journalists to interrupt Mr. Trump with the facts, but it’s an important one.”
