Dick Meyer

Opinion contributor

In the spinning and propagandizing generated by the Trump administration since the heartbreaking shootings at the Tree of Life Synagogue, the president has resurrected a favorite brainwashing technique: The press, he tweeted, is “the true Enemy of the People.”

Eleven people killed by a racist murderer with semi-automatic weapons and it is mainstream journalists who are “true Enemy of the People.” Right.

There is something sadistic about Trump’s use of this historically vile and violent phrase in response to the murder of Jews. The phrase “enemy of the people” was a standard propaganda slogan of both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Often it was the Jews who were the “enemy of the people.” Trump is a political savant when it comes to pressing the abomination buttons that distract his detractors and stoke his people. He used this phrase for a reason this time. It’s disgraceful.

Trump discredits the press, character and words

It is, however, a separate and simpler question as to why President Trump so commonly and joyfully attacks one of the only constitutionally protected professions in America, the free press. He does it because, so far, it works. Press-bashing is a reliable call to arms for his base. A CBS News poll this summer found 91 percent of Trump supporters trust Trump for “accurate information,” 63 percent trust “friends and family,” while just 11 percent trust “mainstream media.”

More important: By discrediting the press, he discredits criticism and scrutiny of his administration, character and words. He discredits the idea that truth and facts exist. Many have written that this is the deep, enduring threat Trumpism poses to democracy.

Trump doesn’t only mock the press, he lies to it compulsively and thus to “the people.” In doing so, he uses another technique swiped from other 20th authoritarian regimes — The Big Lie. The phrase apparently was first used by Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” as in, “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Barack Obama was born in Kenya. The caravan has Middle Eastern types in it.

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How does Trump get away with all this?

► The press is just about the easiest institution to bully in American culture today. Gallup research found that Americans have less confidence in newspapers and television news than any other institutions — except Congress.

► Trump has a large, bellicose media organization in his pocket, Fox News. Trump can counter any news report by pointing to a Fox counter-report; Fox gives any wacko pro-Trump slander media authority. No modern president has had a news media co-conspirator like Trump has in Fox.

► One potential restraint of Trump’s press-bashing and Big Lie agit-prop has been well neutered — the Republican Party. When Democrats criticize Trump, it’s dismissed as partisan carping. But strong criticism from a president’s own party could cause infection. Trump is immune. He has created a feckless Manchurian Republican Party, afraid to antagonize its Fearless Leader.

► History shows that sometimes those who operate amidst the lowest expectations get away with the most awful sins. “The clowns are the dangerous ones,” a character in a new World War II novel by Kate Atkinson says about the rising despots in Europe. Trump is in that tradition, which is having a resurgence in Europe as well.

Trump is the scary clown in the bully pulpit

Trump, the scary clown in the bully pulpit, uses attacks on the media, totalitarian language, cartoonish conspiracy fictions and a repertoire of offensive antics to amuse his people and distract attention from deeper ugliness — from Parkland, to Syria, to Texas border towns and now to Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh.

After the Tree of Life mass extermination, over 70,000 people have signed a petition asking Trump not to come visit their city unless he renounced certain of his words and policies.

Trump was unmoved. He renounces nothing, apologizes for nothing; he is filled with blame for others and praise for himself. These people who wanted to keep him away are enemies of his people, of Him, the Trump.

What might shackle this modern Pharaoh, this incarnation of history’s dangerous clowns?

Only one thing is left. The votes of the American people. On November 6.

Dick Meyer is the author of “Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium.” Follow him on Twitter: @DickMeyer_DC