Quiet, Pig. It's Time to Go
PARIS — Before Thanksgiving cranberry sauce and football, American families might want to watch Ken Burns' stunning PBS series on the long brutal war to break free from a king. If time is short, its final words are enough: "The revolution is not over."
Donald Trump slithered back into office to do exactly what the founders most feared. He sees the people he is sworn to serve as subjects, not citizens. He wants obstreperous enemies of the people — even the Public Broadcasting Service — to be muzzled.
With all the charismatic grace of a rabid warthog boar, he jabbed an index finger at a seasoned Bloomberg reporter who asked why he did not simply release the Jeffrey Epstein files. "Quiet!" he snapped at her. "Quiet, piggy."
His handlers posted a clip of that scene aboard Air Force One. They meant to elicit sympathy for a great leader they say is badly treated by an "insubordinate" press corps that fails to parrot his preposterous assertions.
That began a monstrous 10 days of cruel excesses in the United States, at times maniacal, with reverberations across an imperiled planet.
In a democracy edging toward tyranny if not anarchy, American voters need hard facts set in broad context. Professionals up to the job face withering fire from a porcine president with a gift for exploiting cupidity and stupidity.
Trump is a useful-idiot warmup act for a cabal of sane but soulless autocrats preparing to undo America. He has already corrupted courts and the civil service, politicized the Pentagon and given free rein to ill-trained, overbearing law enforcement agencies.
Despite what he says, America is largely detested and feared abroad, no longer able to defend basic human values by example. China, Russia and smaller despotic states are reshaping the world in their own image. Climate collapse is at its tipping point.
Still, the national mood is changing fast as once apathetic voters see their own families feel the brunt of his folly. It is time to act now before it is too late.
All the president's menagerie needs to go. And next year, as America marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, voters can begin to shitcan them into history.
I am placing no bets. A nation of sheep is no match for circling wolves and cowardly jackals led by Orwellian pigs who walk on two legs. It all depends on whether enough deep-digging reporters at home and abroad can wake the flock up.
We have all seen enough. Nancy Pelosi had it right: "Trump is a vile creature, the worst thing on the face of the Earth." Our species is hardly short of despicable creatures, but none has such capability to do irreparable damage.
Even if he were not so ignorant about a domestic economy that is leaning toward likely collapse, is he really the face that sentient Americans want to show to the world?
This is a two-part Mort Report on an overheated planet fraught with runaway wars. It is based on my own reporting with briefings from colleagues I trust. Its aim is to equip readers with facts and analyses to motivate voters to stand up and resist.
The first is an overview from out here in the real world. The second will focus on specifics, including stories burbling beneath the surface like magma about to burst into hot lava flows.
At the root of it is an unstable president, ignorant as pig iron yet with an uncanny instinct to feign charisma and befuddle the gullible. Money is the only way he keeps score.
Clinicians warned long ago of Trump's malignant narcissism. Those afflicted are utterly self-focused. They thrive on inflicting vengeful pain for any slight. And now, at 79, his semi-literate outbursts smack of advancing dementia.
He is as mercurial as those eight-balls that deliver a different message each time they are turned upward. To him, foreign policy is Monopoly, a transactional game devoid of dignity or principle. Combatants are suckers. Innocent victims are mere statistics.
Is he a Russian asset or a Vladimir Putin fanboy? Either way, his selling out of Ukraine greenlights other despots to push across established borders. European allies buy U.S. weapons at inflated prices. He takes a hefty cut of an embattled country's resources.
His bogus claim to have saved countless lives in those eight "wars" he boasts of settling is the flipside of truth. Few of those were wars. In each, he played only a cameo role to take credit for diplomacy by others.
The death toll of Trump's slashed foreign aid is fast approaching a million, with immeasurable human suffering. His obstacles to global health monitoring risk more calamities like Covid, which his inaction and quackery allowed to spread out of control.
The Lancet, Britain's authoritative medical journal, estimates that USAID cutbacks alone could by 2030 result in more than 14 million needless deaths, including 4.5 million children under five.
His sharp shift in policy toward Israel allows his old cohort Benjamin Netanyahu to retain power as violent settlers occupy the West Bank. His "peace plan" makes way for a luxury Trump Med resort atop remnants of Gaza and Gazans.
Opinions vary, pro and con. Either way, he puts Israel's survival at risk. Angry young men are ready for martyrdom at any cost. The lopsided accords feed hatred of Jews worldwide, including those who favor a separate Palestinian state.
At home, Trump is obsessed with executing those who thwart him. He says military commanders commit treason by resisting his orders. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act is clear. Congress must authorize U.S. armed forces to engage within domestic borders.
Six Democratic legislators, all veterans, produced a TV video explaining that the U.S. military code of conduct requires service members to refuse "patently unlawful" orders. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, a potential presidential candidate, may face court martial.
That triggered a Truth Social stream of "truths," more like "twits," from Trump. One said: “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” He reposted someone else's: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt, true to form, denied what was out there for anyone to read. No, she said, he did not call for executions. Then she blamed Democrats for creating violence and destruction in American streets in defiance of authorities.
The irony beggars belief. Stephen Miller, Trump's junkyard dog, posted: “Democrat lawmakers are now openly calling for insurrection.” He overlooks all those Jan. 6 insurgents, pardoned as heroes to figure prominently in the Republican orbit.
Trump labels every fact-based charge against him a hoax, a witch hunt or unfair slander. He calls himself America's greatest leader except perhaps for Lincoln, the first Republican president. We can imagine what Honest Abe would say about that.
Voters need to go beyond facile generalities to see damning details, then step back to fit brushstroke vignettes into a big picture. For starters, there was Trump's obscene regal welcome for Saudi Arabia's duplicitous crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
America's stately executive mansion is public housing entrusted to presidents on a four-year lease. Trump is turning it into a fool's-gold Versailles he treats as a private club. Corrupt dealings, crypto schemes and schlocky merchandise earn him billions.
He called Bin Salman a model humanitarian in lockstep with his own values and worldview. He is selling F-35 stealth jets to Saudi Arabia, upending a delicate balance in the turbulent region he has already pushed toward wider war by enraging Iran.
ABC's Mary Bruce asked the obvious. The CIA says the Saudi crown prince had Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi cut up with a bone saw and dissolved in acid at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Why should Americans trust him?
Trump fumed vitriol at ABC and demanded that all "fake news" broadcasters lose their licenses. He said Bin Salman denies having anything to do with that. Case closed. How dare a terrible, incompetent journalist insult his honored guest?
He showed off the portrait gallery, with a picture of an autopen where Joe Biden would be. Early this year, when trying to void Biden's pardons, he admitted at a briefing he had also used an autopen. An NBC reporter asked for details. "I don't want to talk to NBC anymore," he replied. "You are so discredited."
Katie Rogers caught the essence of the Bin Salman visit in The New York Times. She wrote:
"Trump made clear he was not interested in giving any credit to a predecessor whose administration had opted to preserve the strategic relationship between the two countries rather than take direct action against the crown prince for Mr. Khashoggi’s murder."
Biden had called Bin Salman a pariah to be shunned. But in 2022 in the post-Covid calamity Trump left behind, he flew to Riyadh to seek support in keeping a steady oil supply. Rather than shake hands, he offered an awkward knuckle exchange.
In Washington, a different sort of president embraced MBS like an old bosom buddy. "'Trump doesn’t give a fist bump," he said, referring to himself in the royal third-person. "I grabbed that hand. I don’t give a hell where that hand’s been."
Besides, he said, some people didn't like Khashoggi. For him, that was enough reason for a gruesome death to silence a critic who wrote regularly for one of America's most prominent newspapers.
Trump's grip on America is plainly slipping fast. Whether elections next year reflect that depends on whether his manipulators waiting in the wings can dismantle the Fourth Estate, a free press still protected by the Constitution.
We have already lost a flawed yet functioning American "mainstream" of newspapers and broadcasters that prospered on earned credibility. Competition forced proprietors to draw sharp lines between factual news and editorial opinion.
I love the end of "Deadline - U.S.A.," a 1952 film that headed me into newspapering. Humphrey Bogart, as a New York editor, is about to expose a local mobster. When the guy phones him to make vile threats, he asks about a rumbling noise in the background.
"That's the press, baby," Bogey replies. "The press! And there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing!"
Today, rich people can simply buy the paper and hire people who follow orders.
That is how The Chicago Tribune went south and, with it, the Los Angeles Times. Jeff Bezos has neutered The Washington Post. Rupert Murdoch owns the weighty Wall Street Journal and the flaky New York Post.
Among traditional newspapers of record, the Sulzbergers' stalwart New York Times is the last one standing. Yet it now attempts to be all things to all people. Finding crucial world-shaping news in its daily deluge can be like panning for gold in a swollen river.
Bedrock TV networks are owned by powerful conglomerates with a range of activities needing government approval. Trump runs roughshod over broadcast news, with multibillion lawsuits and a weaponized Federal Communications Commission.
He is even targeting BBC, which is far beyond his purview to question, because of an edited quote he says distorts his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The controversy prompted two top executives of Britain's widely respected public corporation to resign.
Disney, ABC's owner, was a mouse that roared to defend itself. Faced with legal action of little merit, it meekly squeaked and paid up. NBC is splintering for various reasons. CNN is nowhere close to the scrappy hard-news source Ted Turner designed it to be.
The worst case is CBS where Walter Cronkite was for decades the most trusted man in America. He had reported for years at United Press. He toured Vietnam in 1968 and pronounced the war unwinnable. Lyndon Johnson decided to call it quits.
Edward R. Murrow set high standards for CBS when networks were granted airtime in exchange for nightly newscasts to keep American informed. His warning in the 1950s resonates today: "A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves."
Stepping back, the collapse of CBS encapsulates the main challenges facing America today. It takes some explaining.
A.G. Sulzberger compiled the Times' Innovation Report in 2014, an internal rethink among its news staff on how best to adapt to a digital age. One conclusion was a need for young people with diverse ethnic backgrounds that reflect America.
Despite its advantages, it had a serious flaw. DEI — Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — is a big issue these days, along with named generations. For news coverage, neither one applies.
News organizations, like major league sports teams (and democratic governments), are not about giving everyone a chance to play but rather who is most qualified to do highly specialized jobs.
At the Times, promising reporters and editors worked at the company's smaller papers — farm clubs — until they were ready for what sports fans call "The Show." Others were hired after building reputations. It was an institution defined by a collective team spirit.
Reporters are cutting tools, and many have sharp edges. Editors can be tyrannic. Tensions flair, especially toward deadline. The usual human cliques, jealousies, infighting are unavoidable. But they are supposed to stay in-house.
Bari Weiss joined the paper in 2017 as an opinion page editor, with strong opinions of her own, particularly on Israel where she had worked as an activist supporting the conservative right's point of view.
After conflict over an editorial decision, she left the paper with a stinging public critique of a hostile work environment and much else. With no experience as a reporter, she started "The Free Press," a Substack letter that attracted a rightwing following.
In August, Paramount Skydance paid $150 million for her online site and made her top editor of CBS News. It was a prime example of billionaires at play.
David Ellison, son of Larry Ellison the Oracle tycoon, merged media companies under the name of Paramount for fun and profit. A commitment to essential newsgathering and critical nonpartisan coverage is not high on the agenda.
Top people left CBS' "60 Minutes," condemning the loss of editorial independence and a crumbling of journalistic tenets. That coincided with an exodus of seasoned print and broadcast newspeople to Substack or websites, often behind a paywall.
They are free to say what they think at whatever length, adding podcast interviews and video clips. Yet they mostly reach only the likeminded in limited numbers. Restoring America to sanity and stability requires a critical mass.
Truth is now further distorted by artificial "intelligence," which only reflects what feeds it. News coverage requires actual intelligence: reporters out where news happens and editors who ensure people know what they do not yet know what they need to know.
Today's new technology works both ways. It also gives everyone direct access across multiple platforms that help see the world as it is. But only to people who use them. Come back for Part II on specifics on how and where to dig deeper.
Staying informed today that takes time and effect — but much less than it seems.
When Republicans flood the zone with shit, get a firehose. Why, for instance, waste time obsessing over Jeffrey Epstein? Trump told us who he is at the outset in that Access Hollywood tape before he was elected the first time.
Forced to release the files, he can redact whatever implicates him while focusing attention on inconclusive passing mentions of Democrats. His slavish attorney general can pull a Bill Barr by releasing an advance "summary." Nothing to see here.
But there is also that birthday book. Trump's much-vaunted signature is scrawled across the private parts of a naked woman he sketched along with countless photos of him tomcatting with Epstein. We all know who and what he is.
This is not about distracting side issues. Men and women from 13 colonies totaling only 2.5 million people died by the scores of thousands during eight years to defeat a king.
If heedless free people now cede power to an unhinged dictator who tells a reporter, "Quiet, piggy," we are headed toward an Animal Farm run by a mad monarch who screams, "Off with their heads," like the loony queen down Alice's rabbit hole.
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