“They say, ‘We don’t need him. Freedom. Freedom. He’s a dictator. He’s a dictator.’ … A lot of people are saying, ‘Maybe we’d like a dictator.’”
That’s what Donald Trump said Monday while announcing he was signing an executive order banning flag burning. However, that ignores a decades-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the practice is protected under the First Amendment.
"Once again, Trump has decided that he's the ultimate authority. He doesn't need that pesky Supreme Court decision from 1989,” notes Lincoln Square Executive Editor Susan J. Demas. "… This is just part of the same pattern, like when he sent troops into D.C. He wants the press to cover things on his terms, for this to just be this nonstop spectacle, and to get us used to authoritarianism."
And Trump is getting an assist from media outlets that act like stenographers, Edwin Eisendrath argues.
“Every time [they] report his words like he is God ... we are doing a terrible disservice to truth and to our democracy,” he says.
Now that Trump has dispatched troops to L.A. and D.C., he’s threatening to send them into other blue cities like Chicago — which happens to be Edwin’s and Susan’s hometown.
"This this starts from a place of weakness. His poll numbers are down. His base is faltering because he promised to release the Epstein files,” Susan says.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Prtizker has already vowed to fight Trump in court. And Edwin predicts that Chicagoans aren’t going to take kindly to the idea — nor should they.
"We should never, never get used to armed American troops on our own streets. It's an absolutely ... red line that should not ever be crossed,” he says.
And don’t miss Edwin’s new show, It’s the Democracy, Stupid, on Lincoln Square at noon ET Thursday! He’ll be talking with Lavora Barnes, the former chair of the Michigan Democratic Party.
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