Beware the traps…
Thinking on the recent banning of certain press orgs from white house briefings, I feel there is a parallel between certain orgs being banned from briefings and criticism of certain protests and demonstrations and the issues they encapsulate.
Im gong to continue to write about that tomorrow (or perhaps make a video), but I feel its important to say first that I love a lot of the banned organisations. Operationally it actually chills me that press freedom should be curtailed in such a way, especially given the nature of the stuff that’s being leaked and the pending investigations into those things. Their work, I believe, is some of the best around.
However, I feel there could be a a ploy here underway that the press shouldn’t just walk into. In terms of the Trump supporting American public, running the full gamut from full on Trumpie to reluctant shy, lesser of two evils Trump supporter, this ban makes very little difference. There are already more centrist organisations, not on the ban list saying some of the same things. Organisations like ABC, CBS and the WSJ are already being critical, but, in a more ‘polite’ way, for better or worse. They were not banned. Then you even have right leaning ones, that depending on the time of day / output type are also being critical sometimes too, Fox for instance.
Taking this into account, from the perspective of all of the supporters, reluctant or not, these bans dont matter too much. Trump likely knows that if he continues sounding off the way that he does his most ardent supporters will likely use the same sticks hes beating the banned orgs with, to bash the centrist ones with too. Then it will become easier for the administration to further marginalise all criticism.
