With the presidential seat barely warm, President Donald Trump declared the media “the opposition party,” endorsing the views of his top aide Steve Bannon. Trump’s stance is unprecedented in its timing and severity. (Yahoo! News, January 27, 2017, by Adam Geller)
Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich warns that Trump’s labeling the press as opposition is only part of his strategy to discredit the press and dominate the news. By claiming that the press is lying, he justifies locking them out of news channels so that he alone is the news provider and truth-speaker. That is the strategy of despots, a genuine threat to democracy, writes Reich. (NEWSMAX, January 31, 2017)