In following politics for over 50 years I cannot remember a time where there was such division in the country. “Fake News” is a rallying cry of Donald Trump and his supporters when challenged with reporting contrary to their agenda. But is it really Fake News? That’s why I wanted to read CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s book, “The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America”
Throughout the book Acosta gives his perspective on events in the Trump presidency. “Trump’s election had not soothed tensions on either side,” he writes in reflecting on election night “It had poured gasoline over them. The whole country, Trump supporters and opponents alike, was pissed off, in a state of near rage.” If there’s one thing Trump supporters and opponents can agree on, the country is “pissed off”.
I am a lifelong independent who has voted for both Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates over the years. I have no problem (and I support) some of the principles of the Republican party. What I don’t tolerate is a politician who repeatedly lies to incite his political base. To me that’s the definition of Trump. “As so many GOP strategists have privately conceded to me,” Acosta writes, “in latching on to Trump, their fellow Republicans were compromising their own principles. One inescapable lesson from the first two years of the Trump administration is that Republicans have shown time and time again that they are willing to abdicate their role as a check on the president in order to advance their policy agenda.”
Enemy of the People isn’t just a book bashing Trump, Acosta has critical words for the Democrats, too. “As I saw all too clearly out on the campaign trail, there was extreme Clinton fatigue,” Acosta says, “something I believe Democrats never fully appreciated at the time. This was a major miscalculation, in my view, by the Democratic Party.”
At times Acosta goes too far in challenging the President, like during a White House Easter Egg hunt where he relates how he strategically placed himself to be in position where he could shout out questions to Trump. Really? At an Easter Egg hunt for children?
Yet what comes through in page after page in the book is Acosta’s determination to report the truth. “When journalists dig and talk to sources, who in some cases will disclose what they know only anonymously,” Acosta writes, “it’s not for the purpose of behaving as political activists, as so many critics have alleged. It’s to find the truth.”
Whatever side of the political spectrum you are on, I recommend reading Enemy of the People to get a different perspective than what is presented by the White House on the first 2 1/2 years of the Trump presidency.
