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Viewpoint: What Does It Take?

I wonder as I wander as each day goes by! What does it take for Americans to see we’re being manipulated into distrusting the most credible sources of news and information in modern history?

These are not heady days. This covert attempt at trying to convince a frightened nation it can’t trust the world’s best news organization’s reporting on the actions of the most sophisticated intelligence agencies in the world bottoms out so far beneath reason you can’t help but laugh at it’s “Keystone Cop” persona. The President’s propensity to label things “fake news” ought to be an insult to the intellect of the American public. This thing has gotten so intense even the most skeptical conservative soul has to say “what the ..”

In previous columns we’ve talked about the historically deceptive origins of the Republican Party’s assault on media credibility going back to the Civil Rights Movement and Watergate. Now comes President Donald Trump with Media Bashing 2.0 (The Rise of Insanity).

My latest last straw is the alleged leaking of Trump’s 2005 Tax Returns. What a pathetic attempt at trying to divert attention away from his failing effort to call Obama Care a disaster. Congress isn’t helping with its feeble attempt at rushing through replacement legislation that does so much more harm than good. There are those who rightly question whether Trump leaked the tax returns himself.

Yet if this is Trump’s way to change the subject he’s woefully misjudged the moment and its effect. I’ve a sense his attempt is actually having a boomerang impact. It’s causing every legitimate news organization to closely consider his income in light of any possible Russian connection.

Broadcast and Print Journalists are pointing out how questions about Trump’s tax returns have only grown more fascinating as more serious inquires surface about his campaign and business ties to Russia. F.B.I. Director, James B. Comey publicly confirms an investigation into Russian interference in the presidential election and whether associates of the president were in contact with Moscow.

Add to that official collective, bi-partisan and institutional denial of his baseless claim against Former President Barack Obama. Comey told the House Intelligence Committee he has “no information” to support President Trump’s allegation that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower phones.

Still Trump’s White House doubles down on a bold-faced lie that, more than anything else, utterly destroys any credibility he might possess. The attack on President Obama may be the one mistake that ripples through and shakes loose the moors of Trump’s Presidency.

Consider the mechanics of a twisted mindset. The President ignores all the facts disproving his claim, lays his special brand of insanity at the feet of the British Prime Minister, while accusing her country’s Intelligence agency of participating in the alleged phone tap and then has the nerve to tell her we have something in common because they did the same thing to you.

The tragedy in all of this is Trump has no idea how un-presidential he looks. He has no clue how much his credibility is diminished every time he speaks. Were he not the leader of the free world no rational person would take him seriously.

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But I wonder as I wander, what will it take for us to realize we have to take him seriously? That he plans to do everything he says. We only fool ourselves when we think he won’t.

I’ve always believed that Satan won his greatest battle over humanity when he convinced mankind that he doesn’t exist. Trump has done something similar. He’s convinced many of us he’s just doing his own version of a “Presidential Reality TV” show. But the truth is he is everything and all he appears to be.

So I wonder in my wandering, What will it take for our nation to accept, to really understand, the threat to Democracy his brand of thinking represents?

Dennis Edwards is the Interim-Pastor of Richmond’s Historic 4th Baptist Church. He is an Emmy Award Winning Investigative Television Journalist, a graduate of Virginia Union University and its Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology.

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