Donald Trump is a Trumpzi cult leader- more dangerous than Joseph McCarthy!

For more than three years, criticism of Donald Trump’s flawed presidency has been intense, yet his base of public support has (like a cult....) remained solid. These Trumpzis are a dangerous cult.

An opinion essay published in the History News Network by Robert Brent Toplin Robert Brent Toplin, a former professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and Denison University.

Read more »

Fox News echo opinion - endorsing questionable ideas and cult news

Echo opinion published in HNN the History News Network:

During the past two years in which Donald Trump has stumbled through his presidency, critics have been asking why so many Americans continue to back him despite mounting evidence of deeply flawed leadership. 

In my opinion- Fox News is cult news

Often, these critics express contempt for the millions of Americans who constitute Trump’s “base.” They complain that Trump’s partisans are uniformed people who refuse to acknowledge that the president’s lying, ethical lapses, and failed policies are harming the nation. Trump remains in power, these critics argue, largely because starry-eyed followers ignore the facts. (IMO - classicly dangerous cult mass hypnotism!)

These critics cast blame in the wrong place. 

Trump’s supporters, representing 38% of the electorate according to a recent poll, do not deserve all the censure that is directed at them. They did not create the pro-Trump narrative. They are its (wrong minded!) recipients. Conservative media have been especially influential in promoting optimistic judgments about Trump’s leadership. Fox News serves as (cult!) command-central for the perspective. It draws a large audience. 

In October 2018, according the Nielson’s research, Fox racked up its 28thconsecutive month as the No. 1 basic cable news channel. Fox drew more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined.

Millions of Americans who wish to be informed about current events tune in regularly to Fox. Once they are Fox fans, they tend to stick with the channel. The hosts and reporters on Fox News encourage loyalty. Frequently, they make damning references to CNN (a favorite target) as well as CBS, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post. They hint that only Fox can be trusted. Don’t look elsewhere for information, they warn, because “liberal” networks hawk “fake news.” (But Fox News is cult news!)

What kind of reporting does the Fox News viewership receive through prime-time reporting and commentary? Consider the lessons viewers learned on Thursday, December 20, 2018, an extraordinary day of troubles for Trump’s presidency. Leading print and television journalists outside of Fox expressed shock that Trump suddenly announced plans to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and quickly draw down half of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. They warned that an American exodus in Syria could benefit the Russians, Syrians, Iranians, and Turks at the expense of Kurds who fought bravely against ISIS. Military leaders and foreign policy experts blasted Trump’s decision as ill-advised and dangerous.

General Jim Mattis’s decision to resign as Secretary of Defense, also received abundant commentary on December 20. Mattis’s letter of resignation communicated strong disagreement with the direction of U.S. foreign policy. 

In fact, Mattis, in a clear rebuke of the president, noted that during his four decades of “immersion in the issues” he had learned the importance of treating allies with respect and “being clear-eyed about malign actors and strategic competitors.” Both American and international leaders were alarmed that the last general who seemed capable of taming the erratic president planned to leave his post.

On the home front, Trump led congressional leaders to believe that a compromise was workable on temporarily funding the government. But Trump suddenly reversed his position, insisting there would be no settlement unless Congress provided $5 billion for a border wall. On December 20 the stock market tanked on this news and other developments. The next day Wall Street closed with its worst week since the financial crisis of 2008.

Mainstream journalists focused on the chaos associated with these developments. Several Republican leaders joined them in expressing concern, including Senators Lindsay Graham and Bob Corker. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell backed compromises aimed at averting a shutdown, but Trump and his backers in the Freedom Caucus made compromise unworkable.

In my opinion, Fox News is yellow journalism on steroids!

Fox News television viewers got almost no sense of this mounting crisis when watching prime-time programing on the night of December 20. Shows hosted by Martha MacCallum, Tucker Carlson, Dan Bongino (sitting in for Sean Hannity) and Laura Ingraham directed viewers’ attention to other matters. The programs focused on a subject that had already received extensive coverage on Fox in previous months and years: undocumented immigrants. Hosts and guests warned repeatedly that dangerous foreigners threatened to overrun American society. 

Even though the real “news” on December 20 was about struggles in Congress to keep the government running, Fox’s prime-time programming highlighted stories about an immigrant invasion. Commentators asserted falsely that Democrats advocated “open borders.” They accentuated a report about a violent undocumented immigrant in California. In each program hosts and commentators left viewers with an impression that the big news of the day concerned security threats from aliens. Speakers praised President Trump for his determination to build a wall.

What other topics dominated the night’s discussions on Fox, essentially eclipsing any discussion of the big stories of the day about blow-back from the president’s controversial actions?

Martha MacCallum’s program featured a lengthy interview with Susan Collins. The senator from Maine talked at length about some extremist critics of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court (individuals who harassed her in disgusting ways).

Tucker Carlson (idiotic punditry) drew attention to the work of Robert Shibley, who maintained that America’s universities have been pushing aggressively against free speech. Carlson also took shots at a “Climate Tax” and made fun of claims about Russian interference. He maintained that China was the real threat.

Dan Bongino and his guests blasted Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s defense of the “so-called Russia investigation.” Bongino praised a “terrific book” by Gregg Jarrett called The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump.

Laura Ingraham, like all the other prime-time hosts, devoted considerable time to immigration, but she encountered difficulty when a sheriff objected to some of her arguments. The officer acknowledged the difficulty of holding a violent undocumented man in California because of laws pertaining to sanctuary cities, but he noted that many immigrants in his community were good citizens and sought help from law enforcement when troubled by criminals. “That’s a lie!” Ingraham responded. She ended the interview quickly by mentioning “violence, rape, burglary, robbery and other offenses against property and people.”

A pattern in the reporting and commentary on Fox was evident in these four prime-time programs. By focusing on old news stories that had been red meat in right-oriented media commentary for years, there was little time left for an analysis of stunning developments in the previous 24-hours. General Mattis’s resignation letter hardly got a nod. The outcry by national and international leaders regarding President Trump’s plan to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan received little or no attention. The impact of a government shutdown on the American economy and the American people was almost completely ignored. There was hardly a word about the stock markets’ plummet that day or the huge slide of recent weeks. Instead, viewers heard about scary threats from immigrants, Democrats, university administrators, and Chinese hackers. They were reminded often that President Trump fights tenaciously for ordinary Americans.

Much of the discussion did not reflect what used to be identified as mainstream Republican stands on economic and political affairs. Instead, viewers got an earful of analysis from individuals who spoke from the margins of political debates. Hosts and commentators seemed eager to please their most important viewer, the President of the United States. Most of them endorsed and celebrated Donald Trump’s statements and actions, despite their sharply controversial nature. Dan Bongino, substituting as host for Sean Hannity, provided an example of the slant by promoting his co-authored book, Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.

Endorsing controversial and often questionable ideas, has, of course, been evident in Fox’s broadcasting over many years. A decade and a half ago, the channel sounded a drumbeat for war in program after program, convincing many viewers that Saddam Hussein had been responsible for the 9/11 tragedy, threatened the world with WMDs, including nukes, and needed to be removed. 

On the same channel host Bill O’Reilly devoted considerable (gross misinformation) time to warning viewers about a “war on Christmas.” Anti-religious forces were trying to replace “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays,” O’Reilly ( philanderer*) cautioned. During those years, Roger Ailes, then Chairman and CEO at Fox News, designed the channel’s modus operandi, applying a heavy-handed slant on the news.

Complaints about Donald Trump’s enthusiasts are often misplaced. Many citizens who are regular patrons of Fox News and other right-oriented programming want to be well-informed about current events. They take civic engagement seriously. Those listeners and viewers should be more discerning, of course, but they are not fully to blame for making judgments about national and international affairs that raise the eyebrows of Trump’s critics. 

Fox News, and other opinion sources on television and radio are primarily responsible for the base’s narrow and skewed viewpoints. Millions of Americans have turned to the Fox News Channel and other sources, seeking knowledge about current events. They have been let down by the manipulators of “news”- IMO "cult news!".


Robert Brent Toplin has published several books about history, politics, and film. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Since retirement from full-time teaching, Toplin has taught occasional courses at the University of Virginia. Contact: toplinrb@uncw.edu

*"non-consensual sexual relationship" she says O'Reilly initiated with her

Tariff man's incompetent trade policies - inflexible and risky

Donald Trump is Disrupting the U.S. Economy
Essay by Robert Brent Toplin published in History News Network

Robert Brent Toplin is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington and previously was a professor of history at Denison University. He has published several books about history, politics and film.

Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was a failure! But, of course, Donald Trump, himself, is an economic disaster; so, he has zero understanding about the horrible impact of the failed tariffs implemented during the 1930s, the ones that drove people into bread lines.

Donald Trump has been president for only two of the ten years of America’s economic expansion since the Great Recession, but yet he eagerly (and wrongfully!) takes full credit for the nation’s advancement. It has been easy for him to boast because he had the good fortunate to occupy the White House during a mature stage of the recovery. The president’s fans attribute booming markets and low unemployment to his leadership even though Trump’s words and actions at the White House have often broken the economy’s momentum. In recent months, especially, Trump’s interference in business affairs has put U.S. and global progress at risk.

An article that appeared in the New York Times in May 2019 may offer some clues for understanding why Trump has been less than skillful in managing the country’s financial affairs. 

Tax records revealed by the Times show that from 1985 to 1994 Donald Trump lost more than a billion dollars on failed business deals. In some of those years Trump sustained the biggest losses of any American businessman. The Times could not judge Trump’s gains and losses for later years because Trump, unlike all U.S. presidents in recent decades, refuses to release his tax information. Nevertheless, details provided by the Times are relevant to a promise Trump made during in 2016. 

Candidate Trump advertised himself as an extraordinarily successful developer and investor who would do for the country what he had done for himself. Evidence provided by the Times suggests that promise does not inspire confidence.

Trump’s intrusions in economic affairs turned aggressive and clumsy in late 2018. An early sign of the shift came when he demanded $5.7 billion from Congress for construction of a border wall. House Democrats, fresh off impressive election gains, stated clearly that they would not fund the wall. The president reacted angrily, closing sections of the federal government. 

Approximately 800,000 employees took furloughs or worked without pay. Millions of Americans were not able to use important government services. When the lengthy shutdown surpassed all previous records, Trump capitulated. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Trump’s counterproductive intervention cost the U.S. economy $11 billion.

Trump’s efforts to engage the United States in trade wars produced more costly problems. Trump referred to himself as “Tariff Man,” threatening big levies on Chinese imports. Talk of a trade war spooked the stock markets late in 2018. Investors worried that China would retaliate, inflating consumer prices and risking a global slowdown. Then Trump appeared to back away from confrontations. Stupid Donald Trump aided a market recovery by tweeting, “Deal is moving along very well . . . Big progress being made!”

Donald Trump claimed trade wars are “easy to win,” but the market chaos of recent months suggested they are not. When trade talks deteriorated into threats and counter-threats, counter-punching intensified. In May 2019, China pulled away from negotiations, accusing the Americans of demanding unacceptable changes. Trump responded with demands for new tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump also threatened to raise tariffs against the Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, Mexicans, and others. U.S. and global markets lost four trillion dollars during the battles over trade in May 2019. Wall Street’s decline wiped out the value of all gains American businesses and citizens realized from the huge tax cut of December 2017.

Trump’s confident language about the effectiveness of tariffs conceals their cost. Tariffs create a tax that U.S. businesses and the American people need to pay in one form or another. Tariffs raise the cost of consumer goods. They hurt American farmers and manufacturers through lost sales abroad. They harm the economies of China and other nations, too (giving the U.S. negotiators leverage when demanding fairer trade practices), but the financial hits created by trade wars produce far greater monetary losses than the value of trade concessions that can realistically be achieved currently.

Agreements between trading partners are best secured through carefully studied and well-informed negotiations that consider both the short and long-term costs of conflict. The present “war” is creating turmoil in global markets. It is breaking up manufacturing chains, in which parts that go into automobiles and other products are fabricated in diverse countries. Many economists warn that the move toward protectionism, championed especially by Trump, can precipitate a global recession.

Trump’s approach to trade had unfortunate effects early in the Great Depression. In 1930 the U.S. Congress passed the protectionist Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act that placed tariffs on 20,000 imported goods. America’s trading partners responded with their own levies. Retaliatory actions in the early 1930s put a damper on world trade and intensified the Depression. 

Then, after World War II, U.S. leaders acted on lessons learned. They promoted tariff reduction and “free trade.” Their strategy proved enormously successful. Integrated trade gave nations a stake in each other’s economic development. The new order fostered seventy years of global peace and prosperity. Now, thanks to incompetent leadership with Donald Trump, who acts like he is unaware of this history, the United States is promoting failed policies of the past. 

It is not clear how the current mess will be cleaned up. Perhaps the Chinese will bend under pressure. Maybe Trump will agree to some face-saving measures, accepting cosmetic adjustments in trade policy and then declaring a victory. 

Perhaps Trump will remain inflexible in his demands and drag global markets down to a more dangerous level. Markets may recover, as they did after previous disruptions provoked by the president’s tweets and speeches. Stock markets gained recently when leaders at the Federal Reserve hinted of future rate cuts. It is clear, nevertheless, that battles over tariffs have already created substantial damage.

Pundits have been too generous in their commentaries on the president’s trade wars. Even journalists who question Trump’s actions frequently (wrongly!) soften their critiques by saying the president’s tactics may be justified. American corporations find it difficult to do business in China, they note, and the Chinese often steal intellectual property from U.S. corporations. 

Pundits also speculate that short-term pain from tariff battles might be acceptable if China and nations accept more equitable trade terms. Some journalists are reluctant to deliver sharp public criticism of Trump’s policy. They do not want to undermine U.S. negotiators while trade talks are underway.

American businesses need assistance in trade negotiations, but it is useful to recall that the expansion of global trade fostered an enormous business boom in the United States. For seven decades following World War II many economists and political leaders believed that tariff wars represented bad policy. Rejecting old-fashioned economic nationalism, they promoted freer trade. Their wisdom, drawn from a century of experience with wars, peace and prosperity, did not suddenly become irrelevant after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Unfortunately, when Trump championed trade wars, many Americans, including most leaders in the Republican Party, stood silent or attempted to justify the radical policy shifts.

Since the time Donald Trump was a young real estate developer, he has demonstrated little interest in adjusting beliefs in the light of new evidence. Back in the 1980s, when Japan looked like America’s Number One economic competitor, Donald Trump called for economic nationalism, much like he does today. “America is being ripped off” by unfair Japanese trade practices,” Trump protested in the Eighties. He recommended strong tariffs on Japanese imports. If U.S. leaders had followed Donald Trump’s advice in the Eighties, they would have limited decades of fruitful trade relations between the two countries.

America’s and the world’s current difficulties with trade policy are related, above all, to a single individual’s fundamental misunderstanding of how tariff’s work. Anita Kumar, Politico’s White House Correspondent and Associate Editor identified Trump’s mistaken impressions in an article published May 31, 2019. She wrote, “Trump has said that he thinks tariffs are paid by the U.S.’s trading partners but economists say that Americans are actually paying for them.” Kumar is correct: Americans are, indeed, paying for that tax on imports. This observation about Trump’s misunderstanding is not just the judgment of one journalist. Many commentators have remarked about the president’s confusion regarding who pays for tariffs and how various trading partners suffer from them.

The United States’ economy proved dynamic in the decade since the Great Recession thanks in large part to the dedication and hard work of enterprising Americans. 

But in recent months the American people’s impressive achievements have been undermined by Donald Trump's clumsy interventions. It is high time that leaders in Washington acknowledge the risks associated with the president’s trade wars and demand a more effective policy course.