What are your thoughts on Trump's comments regarding free speech?
At the social media summit:
" We certainly don't want to stifle free speech, but that's no longer free speech. See, I don't think that the mainstream media is free speech either because it's so crooked. It's so dishonest. So to me, free speech is not when you see something good and then you purposely write bad. To me, that's a very dangerous speech, and you become angry at it. But that's not free speech."
https://factba.se/transcript/donald-trump-remarks-social-media-summit-july-11-2019
Posted Jul 13, 2019, 1:11 PM UTC
2537
So, I’m not the biggest Trump fan, and I don’t believe the media is as crooked as some would say, but I do believe they have a heavy left leaning bias.
However, libel and slander are not allowed under free speech.
So as of now, when there isn’t really any legal evidence that the mainstream media is intentionally slandering Trump and making him appear worse than he truly is kinda jumping the gun.
In a hypothetical scenario where Trump has a legal case against major media companies than he has every right to censor proven libel or slander under the constitution, otherwise it is a violation of press rights.
Do you find his position on this issue worrying? It's long been known that Donald Trump is extremely susceptible to criticism. Hell, if he was a pokemon, criticism would be super effective against him with the way it sets him off.
So now that he is in his 3rd year of his presidency and he still continues to aggressively condemn any and all reporting, statements, messaging or actions he finds critical or unsupportive of him as fake news/not free speech/as dangerous are you concerned about the impact this could have on furthering the political divide and failures of communication in this country? Hell, isn't a bit crazy that he constantly blasts the media of being "dishonest" despite his continued habit of lying?
Are you worried about the potential consequences of when the president incessantly tells his loyal base that a huge chunk of the nations are "crooked", "dishonest" and essentially villainous liars trying to destroy him at every turn?
I do find it worrying personally. The President holds quite a lot of power and his overreactions to a biased but not necessarily villainous media can scare me on occasion.
I think when Trump lies he does damage to the reputation of this country, and I hate it.
I think Trump draws his defense against criticism from a majority support base that refuses to criticize him. One of my only friends that supports Trump changes his ideas on a whim based on what Trump says.
The issue doesn’t lie with Trump, but his support base. I think that if many of his own fans criticize Trump for his many flaws but still see him as a potentially great President than his mind can really be molded into a more respectable and respectful candidate.
My hope is for checks and balances to correct the issues with the presidency, as that’s what happens with most administrations
I didn’t particularly support Trump in 2016, he was far from my first choice in the Republican primary.
The only thing keeping my support for him is my dislike of any really popular Democrats and the unlikely nature of any 3rd party candidates winning.
I certainly agree with most of what you've said although I feel that this point
really articulates why this point
seems highly unlikely.
After all, given all of the personal, social, moral problems and scandals involving the president, along with the massive platform and policy shifts made to the GOP platform under him, constant executive branch corruption, and government scandals while in office, what would make his base actually criticize him?
And given all that we know about Trump would do you think he would change if his base began to criticize him? Wouldn't he be more likely to double down and fight back until the criticism dies down, with him decrying it as fake news, or motivated by bullshit reasons he made up?
How/in what form do you think these checks and balances manifest? Hasn't Trump's considerable breaking of norms, rules, laws (nepotism, emoluments), massive executive overreach, and controversial and largely incendiary rhetoric failed to merit any actual response from the GOP? Hell, he upended conservative stance on free trade, market intervention, healthcare, spending, and foreign policy and at not point has the GOP even flinched in giving him actual support right? Sure a couple of GOP congressmen & senators say that they disagree or are disappointed, but the extreme majority vote in favor of Trump without fail right?
I don't doubt that if the writing was on the wall that Trump was doomed that the GOP would throw him to the wolves, but it seems like until then the GOP has no interest in pushing back or enforcing checks and balances on the President. Would you agree?
Only going to respond to the first part of your post, but all we're saying is that Trump has the power to change minds, correct? That simply means he's able to frame the issues in a way that people are swayed by his rhetoric. That means he's a good orator and debater, that's why he won the debates against Hillary, even among independents.