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Lately I've started getting direct messages calling me an "enemy of the people." Trump is putting this nonsense into the jetstream, and his less sophisticated followers are beginning to hate in the way he hates and use rhetoric in the way he uses rhetoric, if they didn't already.
1/ I've said from the start that—though I can't think of what it could be—I always hold out hope there's some insane innocent explanation for everything that's happened. I've also said opposition to Trump should always be legal, peaceful, and fact-based. But none of that matters.
2/ Trump wants *anyone* who opposes him, in any fashion and for any reason and with any set of expressed values, to be regarded as an enemy of the people. He knows what he's doing, and how dangerous it is—and still he's treated as part of civilized society rather than outside it.
3/ I believe it's possible for *any* person—including a president—to act in a way that positions them outside our civil society. Here in America, declaring *near-daily* to *tens of millions of people* that US media is the "enemy of the people" should have that effect immediately.
4/ When people write me to say, "Hey, I disagree with you, and here's why," I don't mind—in fact it's why my DMs are open. I want us to be able to communicate freely on important topics. But increasingly all I hear from Trump supporters is anger and abuse stoked by their hero.
5/ Trump knows his followers won't distinguish between institutions and people when he uses the phrase "enemy of the people," not that either is OK. When some of us call this man dangerous, this is what we're referring to—his willingness to cause pain and fear to protect himself.
6/ There was an obligation for media to do something to register that this man is antisocial and dangerous—*besides* chattering about it nightly with pundits from "both sides." If you're still attending and covering his pressers as you would anyone else's, you're normalizing him.
7/ There are international figures media recognizes as antisocial and dangerous—and they approach covering them accordingly. There are protocols. Here in America, Trump can foment hatred and violence and he'll still be covered not much differently then any Senator or Congressman.
8/ "Enemy of the people" is a phrase despots use. For all that I've criticized Trump, I've consistently done so by saying he undermines and has contempt for our rule of law and the values that undergird rule of law. When he says "enemy of the people," he just means "enemy of me."
9/ I am nobody's "enemy" because—unlike Trump—I identify myself by what I'm *for* rather than against. As a lawyer, I'm *for* the rule of law; as an educator, I'm *for* factual debate; as a poet, I'm *for* the dignity of all people and the possibility of beauty in all structures.
10/ If by some insane miracle it were to be found that—despite all the evidence—Trump has never run afoul of our rule of law, I'd be first in line to say he should be treated no differently than any law-abiding citizen. If not, not. We're a nation of laws—and must always be. /end
PS/ I'm sorry for the long thread. My upset has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the fact that I came out of law school with massive debt and chose to be a "public defender" because that phrase means something to me. I would never act as an "enemy of the people."
