THIS is the issue:
The MSM.
Really. Right now, there is a blackout, as it were, of people being able to express their actual social reality. And that social reality is far more varied, tolerant, diverse and ecumenical than the goober-ridden narrative played out by the MSM.
And I thought TASS of the USSR was bad.
Brown Shirts indeed. TPM readers know who they were and the part they played in the rise of Hitler.
Wonder how many average persons do.
The methods of fascists never change. They’re tried and true.
My friend, I grew up about 150 kilometres from the Fulda Gap. I was 8 years old when the Hungarian Revolt reverberated. I never for one minute doubted that the United States would have a Fourth Estate as long as I lived.
I was wrong.
Does Trump have the thinnest skin of any man alive? How many silly grudges does the dude carry around? Not much of a presidential temperament. Not much at all.
I pine for someone like Edward R Murrow. He would have skewered Trump and the other GOPer idiots. The only modern version of Murrow would be Keith Olbermann who’s ego got the better of him and so his voice is heard only on the “mothership” and is restricted to sports commentary. HE would have taken no prisoners in relation to Trump. Trump would be bleeding out by now.
The only saving grace Trump is offering is the exposure of the ugly under belly of the right wing. The GOP is a fractured party and that fracture is now the size of the Grand Canyon. And hopefully this time around it will cost them the White House, Congressional seats and many local and state offices.
I don’t recall Obama doing this either.
Certain republicans watched too many Leni Riefenstahl movies and had uncomfortable ties with Hitler.
And we thought Bush was bad for saying government would protect free speech by dictating limits to it.
Trump will take that to extremes too.
I commented above that this was a tactic of the Bush regime. One tough question and you were never called on again. Helen Thomas was the matriarch of the White House press room. She asked one too many tough questions and they changed her front row seat, which she had occupied for years, to one in the back row…
Not one of those other so-called reporters in the room said one word in her defense.
The 4th estate was lost 15 years ago. 
Apparently a policeman was involved in the eviction.
do you think the cop overstepped his bounds? it is not the cop’s job to do what donald trump tells him to do. was the reporter creating a nuisance? was he there doing his job? 20 other reporters were not bounced. writing an article that is not kind to trump is a 1st amendment right.
LizzyMom: what if he were president and got into a tweet war with putin? who would go ballistic 1st?
Exactly, if I were the NYT, I’d sue the police department for violation of the 1st amendment.
also right to work.
There’s a link to the story that was so critical of Trump’s Iowa operation, Donald Trump’s Iowa Ground Game Seems to Be Missing a Coach and to sum up it’s a mess. They have a volunteer who’s a 9/11 denier who was told not to mention that he believed that it was staged when he made phone calls and knocked on doors. Which he never did.
“That hasn’t been proven,” he said. “I would have stood up and said, ‘Listen, it was remote-controlled takeover of the autoland’ ” technology.
I’m just shaking my damned head over here. Really just cannot fathom the psychological issues this man-child possesses.
I recall only reading about one or two incidents from both but, I also remember the media didn’t let them get away with it; unlike now.
Pointed finger on a stiff arm salute.
Very fascist, Mr Trump.
The 4th estate died with Edward R Murrow.
Because that’s not yet another of the warning signs that the guy is a dangerous megalomaniac leading a white nationalist authoritarian movement that’ll go unseen by our MSM.
tRump now needs to have someone thrown out of EVERY event he hosts. It’s the newest part of his act. The rubes lap it up when he projects the strength to order his staff to throw someone out- especially a liberal media type who wrote a story critical of him.