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Winnipeg Free Press

Good night — and good luck

Opinion First, a disclaimer: the following remarks do not apply to MSNBC TV journalists Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell, or to contemporary independent commentators Heather Cox Richardson or Robert Reich, or to the online political guerrilla site Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge. They are all yelling as loudly as they possibly can. Everyone else in the American media? It's well past time for you to slap yourselves upside the head and try to remember one essential aspect of competent journalism: context is everything. An average Grade 2 student could accurately connect the dots on the map that is U.S. President Donald Trump's now-detailed sketch of the American police state that is no longer just on the horizon. It's here. It marched into Los Angeles, garbed in military camouflage costumes, on a restive weekend filled with protests over ICE gestapo raiding, of all places, a Home Depot, looking for people with the wrong skin colour (if they're brown, they must be illegals). What to make of Trump's magnificent June 14 military parade, the one purportedly celebrating the American military's 250th anniversary, but which we all know is his big, beautiful birthday gift to himself? The one he so obviously modelled after all those tawdry spectacles in countries led by dictators he has so publicly admired— both the dictators and their pretty masses of toy soldiers and tanks? Icing on the cake he's already baked. On a weary Monday morning, one CNN anchor raised, during her interview with Los Angeles's mayor, the latest poll showing 54 per cent of Americans approve of Trump's immigration policy. The mayor pushed back, suggesting the anchor might look more deeply into that poll. The anchor clumsily conceded that more Americans are uncomfortable with the details of how that policy is being carried out — and hastily concluded the interview. She did not cut to a commercial break; she just didn't want to go there any further with the mayor. Less than an hour later, another CNN anchor gushed about the network's Saturday night simulcast of the Broadway play Good Night and Good Luck, cooing about how Edward R. Murrow's journalistically, stubbornly ethical stand (the play is about the infamous McCarthy era in the U.S., for those too young to remember), and remarking 'that is something we journalists all aspire to.' Is it? Is it really? Fascinating that the simulcast effectively displaced any live breaking news coverage of the Saturday night protests in Los Angeles. Let's examine all the dots to see the picture they create. Commentator Robert Reich recently noted the defining characteristics of a police state: • Declaring an emergency, citing rebellion, insurrection, or invasion as the cause. Done; • Using that to justify the use of force by federal agents (ICE, the FBI, DEA, and national guard… and the Marines and American military are positioned to join the fray at some point). Done; • Ordering those agents to make 'dragnet' arrests and abductions with no due process. Done; and • Building more prison space and detention camps for the prisoners rounded up. That's happening now. He listed one more point — the next one. The shoe that's about to drop: using the inevitable escalation of public pushback, driven by fury over the enactment of the first four, as the excuse to declare martial law. With the notable exception of that small group I cited at the beginning of this piece, the American media (and the vast bulk of the Canadian media, too — don't think for a minute you folks are handling this mess any better) has completely failed to connect the dots. They're too busy examining each individual dot, turning each one over and over, to step back and look at the context. It is worth noting that, fixated on each little dot, they failed to examine the comment Trump threw out in an off-the-cuff newser over that tipping point of a weekend for American democracy. Having said he would order in the Marines if the protests went over the line, he was asked by an unusually perceptive reporter where that line is. Weekday Evenings Today's must-read stories and a roundup of the day's headlines, delivered every evening. His reply: 'It is where I say it is.' Pair that with his remark to a rally of ultra-right white Christians during the election campaign: 'Vote for me, and you'll never have to vote again.' How much more obvious does this have to get before the media starts to perform the role for which it is intended in a democracy? America, your police state has arrived. Just remember: once they have come for everyone else, they will be coming for you. MAGA hat or not. Judy Waytiuk is a grey-haired, wrinkled old Winnipeg journalist who remembers when she was proud her profession ranked among the most trusted by the public. These days, she's ashamed to admit she was one.