The Establishments war on Donald Trump
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Title: The Discredited Fourth Estate: Why Liberal Media Hate Trump
Source:
VDare
URL Source: http://www.vdare.com/articles/the-d ... e-why-liberal-media-hate-trump
Published: Dec 4, 2015
Author: Pat Buchanan
Post Date: 2015-12-04 12:57:14 by nativist nationalist
Keywords: None
Views: 2646
Comments: 22
In the feudal era there were the “three estates”—the clergy, the nobility and the commons. The first and second were eradicated in Robespierre’s Revolution. But in the 18th and 19th century, Edmund Burke and Thomas Carlyle identified what the latter called a “stupendous Fourth Estate.” Wrote William Thackeray: “Of the Corporation of the Goosequill—of the Press … of the fourth estate. … There she is—the great engine—she never sleeps. She has her ambassadors in every quarter of the world—her courtiers upon every road. Her officers march along with armies, and her envoys walk into statesmen’s cabinets.” The fourth estate, the press, the disciples of Voltaire, had replaced the clergy it had dethroned as the new arbiters of morality and rectitude. Today the press decides what words are permissible and what thoughts are acceptable. The press conducts the inquisitions where heretics are blacklisted and excommunicated from the company of decent men, while others are forgiven if they recant their heresies. With the rise of network television and its vast audience, the fourth estate reached apogee in the 1960s and 1970s, playing lead roles in elevating JFK and breaking Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. Yet before he went down, Nixon inflicted deep and enduring wounds upon the fourth estate. When the national press and its auxiliaries sought to break his Vietnam War policy in 1969, Nixon called on the “great silent majority” to stand by him and dispatched Vice President Spiro Agnew to launch a counter-strike on network prejudice and power. A huge majority rallied to Nixon and Agnew, exposing how far out of touch with America our Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal had become. Nixon, the man most hated by the elites in the postwar era, save Joe McCarthy, who also detested and battled the press, then ran up a 49-state landslide against the candidate of the media and counter-culture, George McGovern. Media bitterness knew no bounds. And with Watergate, the press extracted its pound of flesh. By August 1974, it had reached a new apex of national prestige. In The Making of the President 1972, Teddy White described the power the “adversary press” had acquired over America’s public life. “The power of the press in America is a primordial one. It sets the agenda of public discussion, and this sweeping political power is unrestrained by any law. It determines what people will talk and think about—an authority that in other nations is reserved for tyrants, priests, parties and mandarins.” Nixon and Agnew were attacked for not understanding the First Amendment freedom of the press. But all they were doing was using their First Amendment freedom of speech to raise doubts about the objectivity, reliability and truthfulness of the adversary press. Since those days, conservatives have attacked the mainstream media attacking them. And four decades of this endless warfare has stripped the press of its pious pretense to neutrality. Millions now regard the media as ideologues who are masquerading as journalists and use press privileges and power to pursue agendas not dissimilar to those of the candidates and parties they oppose. Even before Nixon and Agnew, conservatives believed this. At the Goldwater convention at the Cow Palace in 1964 when ex-President Eisenhower mentioned “sensation-seeking columnists and commentators,” to his amazement, the hall exploded. Enter The Donald. His popularity is traceable to the fact that he rejects the moral authority of the media, breaks their commandments, and mocks their condemnations. His contempt for the norms of Political Correctness is daily on display. And that large slice of America that detests a media whose public approval now rivals that of Congress, relishes this defiance. The last thing these folks want Trump to do is to apologize to the press. And the media have played right into Trump’s hand. They constantly denounce him as grossly insensitive for what he has said about women, Mexicans, Muslims, McCain and a reporter with a disability. Such crimes against decency, says the press, disqualify Trump as a candidate for president. Yet, when they demand he apologize, Trump doubles down. And when they demand that Republicans repudiate him, the GOP base replies: “Who are you to tell us whom we may nominate? You are not friends. You are not going to vote for us. And the names you call Trump—bigot, racist, xenophobe, sexist—are the names you call us, nothing but cuss words that a corrupt establishment uses on those it most detests.” What the Trump campaign reveals is that, to populists and Republicans, the political establishment and its media arm are looked upon the way the commons and peasantry of 1789 looked upon the ancien regime and the king’s courtiers at Versailles. Yet, now that the fourth estate is as discredited as the clergy in 1789, the larger problem is that there is no arbiter of truth, morality and decency left whom we all respect. Like 4th-century Romans, we barely agree on what those terms mean anymore. 
Like Trump, Nixon didn't respect the press. In 1972, Americans in 49 states agreed with him.
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#1. To: nativist nationalist (#0)
People can say what ever negatives they want about Trump, I don't care. The fact that the establishment R's & D's, and the media hate him so bad is a BIG positive to me !!!
I suspect that's what the avergage hans said about Hitler in his early ascension to power.
Another comparison is to Napoleon . He came on the scene in the middle of a failed 'revolution' and promised to make France great again. Victor Davis Hanson does a good job on that comparison . https://pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/is-trump-our-napoleon
The French Revolution was a spectacular success, not a failure.
It's socialist Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité quickly descended to the Robespierre Reign of Terror . First the royalists were beheaded, next the moderate girondists, and then just about everyone else was purged by the guillotine .It led first to the dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety ;and later the military dictatorship of Napoleon. Finally ,after his defeat ,it led to a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy . Since 1793, France has had at least 11 constitutions ,and at least 2 other popular revolutions.
So much to write about here, and it would be fun to write it in the same smug spirit of ridicule that you used. But I'll restrain myself. My first observation is that it is interesting to find such an ardent American royalist as you. The French Revolution overthrew the monarchy for very good reasons. The French at the end of the ancien regime were treated far more capriciously and suffered far more than the Americans did under your King George. You clearly think that the French Revolution was unjustified. How, then, can you possibly justify your own? Or do you regret that also, and wish that America were a dominion of Great Britain?
#21. To: Vicomte13, redleghunter (#20)
(Edited)
Oh the French Revolution was definitely justified . But it was too radical to succeed . The big difference between the American and French revolutions is the contrast between John Locke's beliefs and those of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The American founders believed that rights were natural ,and governments were necessary to protect those rights . But human nature was not to be trusted . The French Revolution was built on the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed that mankind, being good by its very nature, would exist in a state of complete harmony were it not for the corrupting influences of civilization. The people, in this pure state of nature, were absolutely and completely sovereign. All they needed to do was completely destroy the ancien regime to make that happen. It boils down to individual rights that the American founders believed in , vs. rights defined by the collective equality of the masses. You can be truly free only if you are in sync with the general will. In America, rights were seen as negative things for government to protect....in many instances from the government. In France, they were seen as positive rights which the government was instituted to create and enforce. The modern example of this would be the Roosevelt 2nd bill of rights ;rights that the government create for the people. Democratic Republics today are kind of hybrids of the 2 ideas of rights. Modern America is straying from the founder's ideas as the government grows in size,and in central control. The liberals search for more positive rights to guarantee for the people (paid for with someone else's money and rights ) . Madison identified the flaw in the French Revolution in Federalist 10 : “Theoretic politicians have erroneously supposed that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions.” In other words ,the French Revolution had it's basis on utopian ideas. Sorry ,there is a clear progression from the terror of Jacobinism ,and the bloody purges of the communist regimes in the 20th century ,and the terrorism done by those who would purge their societies today of apostates.
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#7. To: Stoner, nativist nationalist, All (#1)
The fact that the establishment R's & D's, and the media hate him so bad is a BIG positive to me !!!
#15. To: SOSO (#7)
I suspect that's what the avergage hans said about Hitler in his early ascension to power.
#17. To: tomder55 (#15)
nother comparison is to Napoleon . He came on the scene in the middle of a failed 'revolution' and promised to make France great again.
#18. To: Vicomte13 (#17)
The French Revolution was a spectacular success, not a failure.
#20. To: tomder55 (#18)
It's socialist Liberté, Egalité, and Fraternité quickly descended to the Robespierre Reign of Terror . First the royalists were beheaded, next the moderate girondists, and then just about everyone else was purged by the guillotine .It led first to the dictatorship imposed by the Committee of Public Safety ;and later the military dictatorship of Napoleon. Finally ,after his defeat ,it led to a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy . Since 1793, France has had at least 11 constitutions ,and at least 2 other popular revolutions.
Replies to Comment # 20. You clearly think that the French Revolution was unjustified. How, then, can you possibly justify your own? Or do you regret that also, and wish that America were a dominion of Great Britain?
End Trace Mode for Comment # 20.
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