Dear Commons Community,

The short piece below appeared in the Boston Globe on Tuesday in its opinion section.  It is a call for the American press to make Donald Trump irrelevant and to allow our country to heal from his mean-spirited divisiveness.  The cable news and other media have to forgo their ratings and profits and allow our country to come together under Joe Biden’s leadership.  Stop covering Trump’s ridiculous news conferences and stop spending hours of coverage on his tweets no matter what he says unless he apologizes for his behavior during these past four years.

Tony

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Boston Globe

November 17, 2020

If a presidency falls in the forest, does it have to make a sound?

Journalists: Leave your chairs empty in the White House press briefing room.

There has been more than enough coverage of the Trump-estuous toddler masquerading as presidential. Bullies and bigots hunger for attention. It’s Donald Trump’s biggest success.

He’s been extolled or excoriated, psychoanalyzed, politically dissected, trounced over unfulfilled promises, and called out on prevarications. The media have put his every tweet, rant, and crumb of disinformation on record. This contributes to the brainwashing of what can only be called his cult following, who are fueled by his continuing presence in the news.

Stop. Please. Leave him to rant alone, like one would a 4-year-old, sent to his room until he can behave and rejoin the adults.

No more investigative decoding of his moral imperviousness, his ineptitude, his speciousness, his national and international abominations. The media’s analytical prowess and journalistic courage are spun, by the Trumplicans who bow to him, as vicious and vain attacks on their idol. This media attention helps him build his wall — between red and blue states, between the United States and its allies, between caring for the planet and destroying it.

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