I have always found hypocrisy to be one of the higher forms of arrogance. It seems to me there is no greater elitist sentiment than, “Do as I say, not as I do!” I have to admit, as a child I heard it once or twice, and in raising my own children, I tried hard to behave in a way that was consistent with what I said. Maybe this is why I never entered politics. If only we could find consistency to lessen hypocrisy.
President Donald Trump seems to believe that all others should do as he says and not follow his behavior as a role model. We see his arrogance in all his “do as I say, not as I do” splendor when he pulls security clearances from political opponents like former CIA Director John Brennan, and then sends a Twitter storm of messages accusing social media companies for censoring free speech. Of course, when the POTUS suppresses someone’s oppositional free speech, it’s necessary for national security, but when social media companies suppress speech favorable to his administration, it’s censorship. Predicting President Trump’s behavior isn’t always as easy as it should be, although it usually is predictably self-interested.
On Wednesday, August 15, 2018, President Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders read a statement from the president, saying, “Mr. Brennan’s lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation’s most closely held secrets and facilitates the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos.” The president appears to have the unilateral authority to revoke a security clearance, so that is not an issue. It also seems logical if one receives a clearance based on the job, not the person, then once removed from the job the clearance should be revoked. As in many cases with President Trump, it’s less about what he does and more about why and how he does it. This latest action appears to be in retaliation for critical comments Brennan has made about the president. I wonder if President Trump appreciates the irony of his statements and whether he realizes he meets the same standard of conduct as his accusation of someone lying and engaging in frenzied Internet commentary. Can we say this is an example of the Presidential pot calling the kettle black?
President Trump’s statement went on to read that John Brennan had “leveraged his status as a former high-ranking official with access to highly sensitive information to make a series of unfounded and outrageous allegations…” Again, is this POTUS projecting his own use of political power and high rank to punish someone for doing as he does instead of what he says to do? It’s evidently acceptable for President Trump to have “wild outbursts on the Internet and television” but John Brennan better keep his wild speech to himself. Now he and Brennan have something in common: neither have a security clearance. The difference is POTUS still has access to classified information.
On Saturday, August 18, 2018, President Trump went on a Twitter blitz making a series of “unfounded and outrageous allegations” against social media companies who he says are unfairly censoring conservative voices. In his tweets, President Trump, who Brennan accused of acting like a despot, hinted that he might have to intervene if his supporters’ accounts are shutdown. Trump tweeted:
Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2018
What Trump means by “we won’t let that happen” remains to be seen.
Most all major social media outlets have pulled fake news anchor and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from their websites. Jones’s InfoWars “news show” was about as real as Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update and, at times, as funny.
After being pulled from the Internet by Apple, Facebook, Google, and Spotify, Jones appealed directly to Trump, asking him to block the company’s actions and to make “censorship the big issue” for the mid-term elections. Maybe President Trump was listening. On Saturday he tweeted:
…..Censorship is a very dangerous thing & absolutely impossible to police. If you are weeding out Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN & MSNBC, & yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed. I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt, or don’t watch at all..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2018
Again, dangerous unless he is the one doing the censoring.
During his Saturday Tweetfest, Trump encouraged all social media companies to let everybody participate, good and bad, adding that while news networks like MSNBC and CNN are “fake news,” he doesn’t “ask that their sick behavior be removed.” Trump wrote, “I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt, or don’t watch at all.”
There you have it, Donald Trump, the champion of free speech! One tweet even suggested that the social media company’s policy should be to allow all speech, declaring “we will just have to figure it out.” Never mind his relentless attacks on speech he disagrees with or news outlets that report unfavorable news stories about him. How many times has President Trump suggested that those fake mainstream media networks should have their operating licenses revoked? What about him suggesting reporters, who are presumably the enemy of the people, should have their credentials taken away? Hypocrisy? Evidently, it’s not censorship when POTUS thinks it necessary. It’s nothing personal, Trump merely prefers the alternative facts Alex Jones provides, where the truth is not the truth, over any story that is unflattering to his administration. Up until pulling Brennan’s security clearance, he has done little other than to voice his frustration and anger. He has threatened libel but filed no lawsuits. He has threatened to pull other’s clearances, including Phillip Mudd and Bruce Ohr, but has not done so yet. And he uses Fox News, particularly Fox & Friends, as his personal soapbox for free expression.
Free speech and the First Amendment carry more weight than a president that says, “do as I say not as I do.” The president represents the U.S. government which is subservient to the U.S. Constitution that protects speech and allows the petitioning of the government for redress of grievances, often in the form of politically oppositional speech. Trump may not like the opinion of Brennan, Mudd, or Ohr…but they are entitled to their opinion. Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Spotify are private companies, and thus can abridge free speech that they feel violates their terms of use. Perhaps, before preaching about censorship, President Trump should be a little more consistent and a bit less hypocritical by doing as the Constitution says, and not as he’s done in the past.