Anyone who cares about language has been repeatedly appalled by the crudeness of Donald Trump’s rhetoric and by the thuggishness of the directives issued by Trump and his cohorts. They have instructed the American people on what to believe, whom to hate and how badly they can behave. And yet we continue to be surprised by each bullying pronouncement, most recently by chief White House strategist Stephen K Bannon’s suggestion that the “humiliated” media might do well to “keep its mouth shut”.

Now that our mainstream newspapers have given up on finding a fair and balanced way to report the president’s lies, now that the country has watched NBC’s Chuck Todd barely conceal his astonishment at Kellyanne Conway’s reference to “alternative facts”, it’s no wonder that the administration’s antipathy toward the press should have become more openly vehement and reckless.



Trump has referred to reporters as being “among the most dishonest people on earth”, and his press secretary insisted that journalists should be “held accountable” for reporting the truth.

But what’s newly disturbing is the phrasing and tone of Bannon’s statement. Telling an institution to “keep its mouth shut” is, quite simply, a threat – entirely different from expressing the hope that the media might want to temper its criticism and scrupulously check its facts.



By ordering the media to shut its mouth, Bannon is implying that what he would really like to do is discredit, censor and silence the press: to shut our mouths for us.

“The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for awhile,” Bannon said, in an interview. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.”

In a recent New York Times op-ed piece, RonNell Andersen Jones and and Sonja R West, both professors of law, considered the limited power of the first amendment to safeguard the press.



The public’s respect for the media has been severely eroded; no longer profitable, many newspapers have closed; the courts and the government have grown increasingly reluctant to protect reporters and facilitate their work.



What’s ironic, and disturbing, is that all this is occurring at a time when we need a free and unbiased press more than ever before: to inform us of what our leaders are doing, of what they may be trying to keep secret, and to hold the government accountable for furthering the interests of the rich while endangering the health and welfare of the people.



History has shown us why totalitarian governments are such implacable enemies of the press, and why, on coming to power, their leaders have been so quick to impose strict censorship and criminalize dissent.



It’s easier to dominate and oppress a terrified population forbidden to read (or write or speak) the truth, people who have resigned themselves to being lied to, and who are further isolated by a lack of information.



Already, we depend on the press to report on the widespread opposition to the Trump administration’s insidious plans for our future; without the media, each of us might conclude that we, our friends and a few relatives and co-workers are the only ones in the nation with profound reservations about the direction in which our country is heading.

What remains to be seen is how staunchly the press withstands the attempts of Bannon and Trump and others to discredit, marginalize, censor and suppress it. One positive outcome may be that our journalists’ commitment to reporting the truth will no longer be mediated by the desire to remain in the good graces of powerful politicians.



Some years ago, I watched a documentary in which a series of reporters told Bill Moyers that they’d hesitated to question the assertion that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction because they were afraid of “losing access”, worried lest they be denied their places at White House press conferences and on Air Force One.



If that access no longer exists – as Trump and Bannon repeatedly threaten – reporters may lose their reluctance to ask the hard and difficult questions, and may have no choice but to seek out the answers for themselves.

Meanwhile, all of us must do what we can to support our free press: subscribe to newspapers and magazines, donate to the radio and TV stations we trust.



We cannot allow impartial and honest journalism to be something we take for granted – until it disappears. And the more stridently that men like Stephen K Bannon tell us to keep our mouths shut, the more essential it is for us to keep talking, to insist on our constitutional right to speak freely, to write and read the truth.