NY TIMES HEADLINE FIASCO

The Dangerous Insanity of the
Anti-Trump Coup Plotters

by Harley Schlanger

[Print version of this editorial]

Aug. 9—The virulent blow-back against the truthful headline in the New York Times’ (NYT) lead article on President Trump’s remarks to the nation on August 5, in response to the mass killings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, reveals the desperation of those committed to removing Trump, following the utter failure of the Russiagate investigation to provide the means to do so. The headline in the first print edition of the paper on August 6 read, “Trump Urges Unity vs. Racism.” This accurately conveyed the central theme of Trump’s address, in which he described the killings as a “crime against all humanity,” and said that, “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.”

Referring to these events as acts of “monstrous evil,” a product of “mental illness and hatred” in a “culture that celebrates violence,” he offered preliminary proposals to counter the “sinister ideologies” behind the hatred, and the causes of desperation which drive individuals to commit mass murder. Among his proposals were long overdue steps to counter the environment in which such acts occur, including measures to put in place means to look for “early warning signs” of troubled individuals; reform of the mental health system to deal with such individuals; and efforts to “stop the glorification of violence,” by addressing the proliferation of “gruesome and grizzly video games.” While the media predictably rejected his comment on video games, acquaintances of the Dayton shooter told the media that he spent hours playing such games, as have many of those who have committed mass murders.

As all presidents have done in the past when such atrocities have occurred, Trump traveled to Dayton and El Paso to console the nation, and to inspire unity, rejecting partisanship. “Hate has no place in America,” he declared, while acknowledging that the “cultural change” needed to overcome it “is hard.”

Anti-Trumpers Unleash Hatred

Within an hour of the appearance of the NYT headline, the anti-Trumpers launched a furious response, complete with a “#Cancel NYT” barrage on Twitter. A spokeswoman for the NYT, Eileen Murphy, defended the braying mob, saying that the “original headline was flawed.” In the second edition, the NYT changed it to “Assailing Hate but Not Guns.” This too was criticized as appearing “too sympathetic” to Trump. Critics spewed that it is wrong to present Trump’s call for unity as “sincere,” and Dan Rather, once a respected journalist with CBS News, went so far as to say that media should not report Trump’s words, but cover his intent, which Rather divined as being to promote racial polarization and white supremacy. Vanity Fair reported that the executive editor of the NYT, Dean Baquet, has come under attack during the Trump presidency “for his efforts to appear neutral.”

Such a characterization is incredible, as the NYT—along with the Washington Post, MSNBC and CNN—has been among the most aggressive in promoting the fake story behind Russiagate, filling its pages daily with leaks and lies from London-based and Obama intelligence agency operatives, alleging that Trump was elected by Russian interference, that he “colluded” with the Russians, that he “obstructed justice” to cover up the crime, and that his overtures to establish mutually beneficial relations with Russia were driven by his fear of sex scandal blackmail by Putin—all stories which were ultimately rejected by the report issued by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. But this hysterical response is characteristic of the escalation against Trump in the wake of the Mueller report, representing a phase shift in the drive for a regime-change coup in Washington.

Who’s Inciting Insanity?

The President’s would-be opponents in the 2020 election are engaged in a new level of open incitement against him, with full support from the hypocrites of the mainstream media. In the aftermath of the tragedies in El Paso and Dayton, they are charging that it was Trump who provoked the horrific events, through his comments and actions. While accusing him of using these events to attack his challengers, they themselves are employing increasingly violent and provocative language against him.

Joe Biden, for example, the purported front-runner among Democrats, asserted that “the President has fanned the flames of white supremacy,” using both “language” and “code.” The shootings, he said, were caused by hatred, “which has been fueled by rhetoric which is divisive, and it’s causing people to die.” He tweeted that Trump is using his office “to encourage and embolden white supremacy.”

Two weeks before the shootings, Sen. Elizabeth Warren accused Trump of “trying to stir up as much hatred and dissension in the country as possible.” After the two mass shootings, she claimed, “He’s responsible” for the killings, and called him a “white supremacist,” a slander also expressed by another candidate, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke. Sen. Corey Booker, another presidential aspirant, went so far as to call for a ban on Trump campaign rallies, saying they are “a breeding ground for racism.”

Such comments, blaming Trump for the acts of deranged individuals, fly in the face of recent history. Such mass shootings, unfortunately, have become increasingly common in the United States, numbering 37 during the Obama presidency. These included the targeting of an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina in June 2015, in which a white supremacist killed nine people during a church service.

Further, the desperation of the media to blame Trump for the escalation of verbal attacks was evident in a Los Angeles Times article on his tweets, in which Trump criticized his opponents for saying he was responsible for the mass murders. The Times accused him of logging onto Twitter “to insult Democratic politicians,” of “politicizing last weekend’s killings,” ignoring the voluminous, opportunistic efforts by his opponents to do precisely that.

Instead of discussing the proposals in his August 5 address as a starting point to address the violence, these rants escalate the polarization, which has been the response of Democrats and their mainstream media backers, to the failure of the Mueller report to provide evidence to justify impeachment proceedings against Trump.

While accusing him of extremist, partisan rhetoric, the anti-Trump mob has spent more than two-and-a-half years charging him with sexual perversion, using the discredited, fabricated dossier compiled by former British MI6 agent Christopher Steele—which was paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign—to make the case. The Steele dossier also was fraudulently used by the FBI to obtain a warrant from the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court to spy on the Trump campaign. This illegal activity is now itself the subject of an investigation, launched by Attorney General William Barr, looking into the origin of the anti-Trump campaign, which predated his November 2016 election victory.

Further, Mueller’s failure to prove the Russian narrative, and his confused and unconvincing testimony before Congressional committees on July 24, has precipitated the opening of this new phase of the coup, with harsher rhetoric against Trump as a “racist” and a “fascist.”

An example of this is the mid-June eruption of freshman Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), who charged that the detention centers housing immigrants detained for unlawful entry—or awaiting asylum or deportation—on the border with Mexico are “concentration camps.” To ensure that the comparison of Trump to the Nazis was not missed, she defended her use of the term “concentration camps” by invoking the phrase “Never Again” and then asserting, “A presidency that creates concentration camps is fascist.” A self-identified “Antifa” terrorist, who firebombed a facility of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Washington State, credited AOC’s rhetoric with inspiring his action.