Commentary: The silence in response to the chaotic initial weeks of the Trump administration is overwhelming
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It has become an eerily familiar spectacle, straight out of some apocalyptic thriller, of a little man-child nattily attired in a tiny suit and tie, riding his father’s shoulders into the Oval Office, ready to face the cameras [2:19]. Donald Trump seems to be barely listening, content to leave the heavy lifting — and lying — to his unelected co-president, Elon Musk.
The Associated Press, now banned from presidential briefings for the crime of calling the Gulf of Mexico by its proper name, is no longer in the room. A gaggle of pre-approved reporters and online influencers perform their appointed roles , as if truthful answers would be forthcoming.
Musk explains how he and his army of largely anonymous tech bros are kneecapping government agencies, illegally ordering the firing of some 200,000 civil servants. They are trolling through classified databases, under the questionable pretext of eliminating trillions of dollars of waste, fraud and abuse.
This scene and others like it underscores how hard it is for the many-headed beast known as the news media to look beyond the memes and staged spectacles and bear meaningful witness to our unfolding national catastrophe.
As Trump’s henchmen go about their work ordering mass deportations of undocumented people, dismantling US AID, the IRS, NIH and the U.S. Treasury, on another stage set — this one in Riyadh — Secretary of State Marco Rubio is forging an alliance with Russia and throwing Ukraine and our NATO allies under the bus.
The intent of the barrage of executive actions is to shock us, to put us in awe, wear us down, confuse us and ultimately numb our capacity for outrage. The silence in response to the chaotic initial weeks of the Trump Administration is overwhelming. There are voices we should be hearing — like the asylum-seekers cruelly trapped in a hotel in Panama, awaiting deportation. Their stories should be told.
The Department of Education has advised educational institutions from preschools to universities to eliminate diversity programs in 14 days or risk losing federal funds. It’s clearly illegal and unconstitutional, but why aren’t university presidents, school superintendents and board members expressing their outrage? Just a year ago, college students across the country were chanting their disdain for “genocide Joe Biden.” Why are campuses so silent now?
Truth is, most people in leadership positions today are keeping a low public profile. Who wants to get in the crosshairs of an administration that delights in punishing its enemies? That’s what makes the task of reporting this evolving crisis so difficult.
Gov. Bob Ferguson is carefully calibrating his rhetoric, aware that roughly one-third of the state’s budget comes from the federal government. When the state was ravaged by wildfires in 2019, the first Trump administration sat on its hands, angered by then-Gov. Jay Inslee’s criticisms and then-Attorney General Ferguson’s multiple lawsuits.
And sure, this time around, muted protests are taking place in major cities and small towns. But these days, images of folks waving “Deport Elon!” signs may be perceived as emblems of weakness rather than moral strength. Fear of doxxing makes people wary of signing their names on petitions. Neighbors are reluctant to discuss current events with neighbors for fear that they may find themselves on opposite sides.
Network bosses cower in the C-suites of corporate media. Apparently fearful that persecution by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr will cut into profits, CBS is close to settling a spurious Trump lawsuit over its routine editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. The Washington Post continued its descent into irrelevance by pulling an ad sponsored by liberal groups calling for Musk to be fired. And some days, the New York Times seems more interested in reporting on how Democrats have lost their mojo than to dig deeply into the specifics of Musk’s cost-cutting efforts.
Not everyone is buckling under. The AP — the gold standard of just-the-facts reporting, without spin or bias — continues to report on the presidency and has filed a First Amendment lawsuit. Wired magazine has led the way to uncover team Musk’s sloppy work. Unlike Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who were among the first to scurry to Mar-a-Lago, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell continue to aggressively critique the President.
Some of the best reporting on Musk so far comes from feisty nonprofits: notably NPR and PBS, already in Carr’s investigative crosshairs. Pro Publica and The American Prospect (TAP) stand out for their investigative efforts: TAP’s Maureen Tkacik’s revelatory profile of Tom Krause, the private equity hatchet man overseeing Musk’s tech bros, breaks new ground. And TAP’s David Daye is far ahead of legacy media with his reporting on what’s really going on with the mass firings of federal workers and Musk’s planned fire sale of federal properties.
The most effective way to protest, in the words of Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown, is to “follow the damn law.” Brown and the attorneys general of 21 other blue states have filed motion after motion to challenge Trump’s illegal executive orders and Musk’s forced firings. These slow-moving but important stories are an effective counterweight to the paralysis so many people are experiencing right now.
In speeches on the Senate floor, Sen. Patty Murray is one of the voices of sanity calling the Trump administration to account. Her recent letter to constituents, warning federal employees about Musk’s bogus Fork in the Road buyouts because no money has been budgeted to pay for them, was a true public service.
The heroic efforts of these elected officials deserve much more coverage in local, regional and national media than they are receiving right now.
View Sen. Patty Murray’s Senate speech on Musk’s takeover of the Treasury Department. In the silence of this difficult moment in our history, voices like hers deserve to be heard.
— By Joan Connell
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