Trump, Burning Bridges

IT IS UNCERTAIN WHETHER DONALD TRUMP understands the relationship he has with the media, and the relationship he will have with them in the future. He seems to harbor the strange illusion that he can and is going to have complete control over that relationship. If so, he is sadly mistaken and shall soon be rudely awakened. His recent brouhaha with CNN may verily be a harbinger of ominous portent for the incoming president. Trump had better learn to be careful about burning bridges to the American people, which is what, after all, the media provide. If he establishes adversarial relationships with one, two, then more and more media companies, and starts to pick and choose which to admit to his glorious presence and which to exclude, as Newt Gingrich and others advocate, the day will come, soon, when Trump will rue the unintended consequences. What Newt Gingrich wants Trump to do, basically, is to exclude all media companies and reporters from access to Trump who are not conservative and sycophantic. Blatant censorship, pure and simple, and if it begins to happen, the whole country will rise up and put a stop to it. The american people will only put up with so much censorship, propaganda, and misinformation from even the great Trump. Depend on it. Trump is not going to get away with having one press conference a year, with reporters from FOX News scribbling away, all by their lonesome. He, as president, will grant wide access to the media, on the media's terms, or he will soon be seen as a tyrant, Putin style. That leads to a leader's downfall. Just ask Hitler, or Caesar. Powerful though Donald Trump may be, the American media is more powerful still. Nobody knows how much money Trump has. He brags about his wealth, but carefully conceals the numbers. But the American media have more, much more. And, the American media has a veritable army of fresh young idealistic truth seeking journalists entering the fray each year after graduation. The president elect communicates with his country by tweeting on Twitter, and avoids press conferences with freedom of the press, and tries to totally control and orchestrate them. The president elect accuses CNN of creating "fake news" with the story of Russia having damaging information on Trump. There is nothing fake about it. The most fake news comes from Trump, in the lies in the twitter tweets lies he hides behind, and later denies. Trump's attitude about himself, the media, and dealing with facts and criticism is incredibly juvenile, narcissistic, manically tyrannical, and therefore extremely dangerous, potentially, to us all.