This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a warning from CNN’s media critic “creeping authoritarianism” under President Trump, an “aspiring autocrat.”
CNN’s Brian Stelter opened his Sunday show, Reliable Sources, with a lengthy lecture about “the aspiring autocrat and the media’s response.” The autocrat, of course, was Trump. The on-screen graphic screamed: “EXPERTS SEE SIGNS OF ‘CREEPING AUTHORITARIANISM.’” Stelter soon recited from a Harvard University professor’s piece, “10 Ways to Tell If Your President Is a Dictator.”
Trump, he said, met all of the qualifications: “He said, after impeachment, the president has been passing most of the checkpoints on the way to authoritarianism. On his list are things like fearmongering, demonizing the opposition, and using state power to reward corporate backers and punish opponents. Does that sound familiar?”
Here is a portion of Stelter’s opening commentary at the top of the Feb. 16 Reliable Sources:
But first, the aspiring autocrat and the media’s response. As this banner on Fox says, President Trump is unleashed [“PRESIDENT TRUMP UNLEASHED”]. That’s why there are growing fears of something called “democratic backsliding.” This is a term used in political science, a term used to describe the erosion of institutions that sustain democracy.
Another way to put it is “creeping authoritarianism,” a move toward autocracy. Now, that’s a word we’re increasingly seeing being tied to President Trump. You can see it in some of these headlines in the past week, “Trump’s authoritarian style is remaking America,” things like that.
Now, a lot of these are opinion columns, perspective pieces, but these are important and complicated concepts.
My question for you is, how can the nation’s news media make time and space to explain this? I mean, we live in this new story every minute, info-saturated world. But this may be the biggest stories of them all. So, what are the best ways to cover it?
Well, one way is with a list. Harvard professor Stephen Walt has been keeping a checklist ever since 2016. He called it “10 Ways to Tell If Your President Is a Dictator.” Now, he wasn’t saying Trump’s a dictator. But he was watching for troubling signs.
So, he revisited the list this week and you’ll notice the checkmarks here. He said, after impeachment, the president has been passing most of the checkpoints on the way to authoritarianism. On his list are things like fearmongering, demonizing the opposition, and using state power to reward corporate backers and punish opponents. Does that sound familiar?
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “Stelter has long lost any credibility as an analyst of news media coverage of politics as he devotes much more of his show to his disdain for President Trump than failings by the media to offer fair and balanced coverage of him. Stelter actively encourages journalists to promote the wildest conspiracy theories of the far Left. He’s earned his own list: ‘How To Tell If Your Cable News Host Is a Left-Wing Activist.’”
Rating: Five out of five screams.
