“You force the press into the cold and all you get is lies and innuendo. Nothing is worse for a free society than a press that is in service to the military and politicians.”
-Saul Rubinek as Emmett Bregman in a Stargate episode: Heroes

“Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” When Frost asked “By definition?” Nixon replied “Exactly.”

    Curious… when should we start the history here? I suppose we could argue there have been several eras where we were headed that way. But perhaps we should consider a more present tense?
    Joseph McCarthy and a lor of pro-Nazi activity at the time? Yes, McCarthy DID have connections to that. Steven J. Ross in his book The Secret War Against Hate.
    Of course war certainly creates situations that edge us towards dictatorship and involve misdirection. Until Vietnam, the press was less aggressive, whether it be LBJ or Nixon. To be fair we had never had a war at that time that went longer than wars had, and had so many protesting, objecting, raising hell about it. A rather large, independent, baby boom generation was certainly part of that.
    The assumption here is the press operates on an objective basis. With the advent of investigative journalism that was less true, and even worse deliberately skewed media. Richard Nixon didn’t help. With his paranoia, enemies list and the attitude so well preserved in the “not illegal” quote. The imperial presidency concept: the Unitary Executive Theory, also doesn’t help.
    What we have now is beyond the media doing its job, the president as just being part of three coequal branches of government and the branches acting independently. We have war on a civil level. And one thing that didn’t help was we keep heaping and shifting more and more power on top of the executive. Not that they have objected. Funny how presidents who question how much power is being handed over to the executive don’t object when they become president. Is the president more a dictator under Unitary Theory? I would argue emphatically, “Yes.”
    Then we have the media… are FOX, Newsmax, OAN, even MSNBC really “news media?” Not in the traditional sense.
    And the parties… when one party complains about activist judges on the Court then appoints judges even more activist the shift to taking power away from the people is obvious. No one votes for the Supremes, though the music group I might.
    SORRY, but that was fun to add!
    When the SC constantly rules as if they are the president’s bitch, that a problem. One might argue this during the Warren Court, but sing so many other courts have rules the opposite at the same time there’s no doubt the current court is way beyond Warren. Why it’s almost6 as if the judges appointed by one party most of the time rule for the president, or the party, that appointed them. Not for what the Constitution may say.
    Misdirection towards favoring a dictatorship: when one branch of government argues it must hold off for a whole year to appoint a justice for a precedent that doesn’t exist… then violate that same supposed precedent they claimed existed by rushing through an appointment years later because a new president of another party was about to be sworn in, is that freedom? Misdirection towards favoring a dictatorship: when one member of one party can refuse to bring up for a vote a bill both sides wanted until it dies, and the public wants, is that a free society? Misdirection towards favoring a dictatorship: if they can hide the condition of a politician who constantly enables a president… who is out of action… who may even be dead, just because the governor may appoint someone the president doesn’t like, is that a free society? Misdirection towards favoring a dictatorship: if at the drop of a hat they can re-gerrymander a state so the president’s is more likely to win the next election, is that a free society? Misdirection towards favoring a dictatorship: if a president can avoid all questions by calling the questioner names, yelling at her and creating constant misdirection instead of answering questions, is that a free society?
    One can even certainly argue that skewing political discussion debate and campaigning towards trash talk, and as far away from “my honorable opponent” is steering towards dictatorship. Why should we care how Trump, Biden, Harris, whomever can negatively frame their opponent? Did you think they’d say something nice? Did you think they’d be honest? If so, what planet are you from?
    When everyone MUST be loyal to one leader, not challenge him/her, that’s NOT a free society, not a free nation.
    When no president will ever be found guilty, when impeached even multiple times, when the public wants it, is that likely to stay a free society?
    Everything, every branch of government, is being weaponized. The purpose: to dismantle the basic nature of a free society.
    The very way we do elections is being used for this purpose, especially when a leader never accepts defeat, must always have been cheated. At one time, even if we thought so, we moved one and most of the time wone the next one.
     The rhetoric now HAS TO serve this purpose. Do you remember, or have you read, this quote from John McCain about his opponent Obama?

“No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.

    All this displays our slide into a society throwing away freedom as if it is garbage. Campaigns ran as if they’re some WWE contest where the object is to find a bigger rhetorical chair to slam over your opponent’s head. Sometimes it seems a competition to invent an even bigger lie.
    When the other side must be framed as evil, and then even more evil all sides will become. The more dictatorship becomes a supposed solution… until it proves the opposite: as it has over the history of humanity.
    As we slip and slide on such bottom of a political outhouse waste towards a dictatorship. And so much of it via intentional misdirection.

Another factor: it’s now fashionable via AI to try to support lies with fake images. This picture, takne long before AI, is not a fake, but McCain was slandered with the claims he committed treason and Nixon pardoned him. Rejecting all fact checks some insist on politics by lie and deceptions, much like Goebbels and Hitler.

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                                    -30-

    “Inspection” is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 50 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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