We’re horrified too.
Not just by the ascension of the most unqualified individual ever to capture a major American party’s nomination to the White House.
Not just by the Confederate coalition that will comprise his Cabinet.
Not just by the hate crimes that have occurred nationwide since November 8.
We’re horrified by the mainstream media normalizing this nonsense.
Let’s be clear: there is no such thing as the “alt-right.” These folks are, were and will always be skinheads in slacks and sportcoats, the sort of folks who thought Abraham Lincoln, Emmett Till and Martin Luther King Jr. got what they had coming to them. They do not deserve the respect of civil society. They do not deserve deference from the Fourth Estate.
We’ve seen this sort of cowardice from the press before. The mainstream media surrendered to President Reagan, allowing his racism and radicalism to run rampant throughout the 1980s. In 1992, ABC’s Nightline tried to promote Rush Limbaugh as an environmental expert. A decade later, the Fourth Estate aided and abetted the launch of the Bush administration’s bogus war in Iraq.
Unfortunately, it is a guarantee that the mainstream media will continue to provide a safe space for stupidity and sleaze during the Trump administration. Fortunately, with your help, the Washington Monthly will be able to do the job the media elites refuse to.
We vow that we will not genuflect to the grotesque over the course of the next four years. We vow that we will challenge and call out and contemptible choices of the next Commander-in-Chief. We vow that will document the depravity of this incoming administration as thoroughly as we possibly can.
We will not roll over.
We will not kneel down.
We will not normalize the abnormal.
We will not make excuses for extremism.
We will not rest.
But we will need your help. The reality-based community is in for a long and vicious street brawl, and a loss will have catastrophic consequences for our politics, our people and our planet. The Trump administration will be a hybrid of the worst elements of the Nixon, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations–and only committed combatants will be able to defeat these forces.
Under the guise of making America great again, the Trump administration plans to degrade America, to allow polluters and prevaricators to prevail, to destroy as much progress as he possibly can. His vision can be vanquished. His agenda can be resisted. But not without your help.
We can’t do this without you.
Please make a tax-deductible donation to the Washington Monthly today. Every contribution will be necessary, and every contribution will be appreciated.
This country–and indeed, this world–will face some grim and grotesque times over the course of the next four years. With your help, and with your hope, we may be able to stop the very worst from happening.
Let’s do it. Let’s stop this sleaze. Let’s put the media elites to shame.
Let’s make something happen.
