Thoughts for the Day, September 3, 2025: Where are the Bob Woodwards and the Carl Bernsteins in today's media?

Step by Step and Inch by Inch

I used to believe that the greatest safety net for our democracy was the free press led by our major newspapers. They took great pride in their investigative reporting which exposed corrupt politicians and brought fear to the remaining politicians if they crossed the line. Think Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post bringing down Nixon and Agnew. Think Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick of the Detroit Free Press bringing down Kwame Kilpatrick.

In the lead up to the presidential election of 2024, I learned our major media outlets could no longer be trusted to be independent organizations who sought truth no matter the cost. I learned that the largest media outlets did much to stifle investigative reporting or commentary that would be perceived to be offensive to political leaders.

Since the election, my confidence in the major media outlets has gotten worse as many of the major news outlets have wilted under the pressure and threats of Trump. Every day, I am looking for outrage against Trump’s attack on the Constitution. Every day I am looking for outrage against the Congress that sits back and refuses to defend the Constitution and honor their oath of office. Every day I am disappointed.

It is with this background that I really appreciated the following article from the Contrarians’ Jennifer Rubin, who publishes on Substack, which I find I am using more and more as a source of information. Thank you to a subscriber who referred this article to me.

*********************************************************************************************************

From The Contrarian’s Jennifer Rubin

One of legacy media’s common refrains—“Trump is testing the limits of [fill in the blank]”—is among the most revealing (about the media employing it, that is). The phrase reminds us that obfuscation and evasion, not truth-telling, are driving their approach to covering Trump 2.0.

When corporate and billionaire media suggest that Donald Trump is testing the limits of the Constitution or executive authority or congressional Republicans’ self-debasement, one conjures up a vision of deliberate inquiry. It assumes a level of intentional, rational analysis, a set of intellectual skills Trump has never demonstrated. Worse, the deceptive phrasing gives one the false impression that Trump would retreat if the “tested” scheme did not work or proved unnecessary (or if courts disallowed it). But it is not a “test,” if he plunges forward regardless of facts, deterrents, public reaction, or nettlesome lower court decisions.

Trump is not “testing” the limits of executive power in trying to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook. He is blasting through the plain letter of the law, violating the bipartisan consensus that the central bank should be insulated against political pressure, and putting at risk our economy…. “Testing” makes it sound so much more benign, which obviously is the point. Such language normalizes and justifies…his serial assaults on the Constitution and rejection of reality.

Likewise, media spinners of conventional wisdom prattle on that Trump is takin us into “unchartered” territory or waters. They would have us imagine he is a daring explorer seeking to pursue new adventures that predecessors lacked the courage to do. No one proposes the accurate alternative: that he is a crazed nihilist bent on blowing up legal, moral, and political norms that no predecessor had the galling disrespect to challenge.

We also hear the frequent observation that Trump is advancing an “unprecedented” argument or position as if no one as clever as he ever devised a theory of the Constitution that would allow him to do whatever he pleases.

These lame weasel words seem designed to avoid saying the obvious: This wannabe dictator has been gleefully shredding the Constitution; he is the Framers’ worst nightmare and the sort of autocratic figure “conservatives” used to denounce….

The cowed corporate media (the same that has paid off Trump with phony settlements, turned themselves inside-out to curry favor with the Dear Leader, and studiously avoided thorough investigations into his physical and mental decline) resort to these expressions in order to duck the most important issue of our time. They appear deathly afraid to acknowledge that we are turning into a police state. We should stop expecting this faction of the media to recognize that democracy is being imperiled by the unending attacks on the rule of law, American values, and our constitutional structure.

To normalize Trump means cringing media outlets need not “take sides” or flatly speak the truth. They can continue the pretense that this is a president like any other president. They can keep access to newsmakers and insist they are neutral in the fight between democracy and authoritarianism.

That does not mean the rest of us have to tiptoe around the truth.... If we soft-pedal Trump’s reign, we wind up habituating the public to dictatorship. As political scientist Daniel Ziblatt explains: Democracy rarely dies in a single moment. It is chipped away via abdication: rationalizations and compromises as those with power and influence tell themselves that yielding just a little ground will keep them safe or that finding common ground with a disrupter is more practical than standing against him.

…Ziblatt points out… argues that a dictatorship “succeeds because others enable it—because of their ambition, because of their fear, or because they misjudge the dangers of small concessions.” And they minimize the consequences that flow from cocooning a dictator in the language of routine politics.

In the end, many Trump enablers—including cowering press outlets—may be crushed by the dictators’ boot, but their demise is not nearly as tragic as the suffering inflicted on the most vulnerable people, i.e., those who lack the resources and power of toady politicians, multi-national corporations, or giant media conglomerates.

Trump is trashing our Constitution with the expectation that the Supreme Court’s MAGA majority will let him (as it has done every step of the way), and the Republican quislings will cover for him.

….Americans can impede Trump’s dictatorial ambition. Whether we collectively confront MAGA politicians, feeble media outlets, and our fellow citizens with searing clarity will be the real “test” for our democracy.

My Orchid of the Day goes to Jennifer Rubin for calling out our major media companies for soft pedaling Trump’s running roughshod over our Constitution, while SCOTUS and Congress allow him to do so.

My Quote of the Day. One more time by Martin Niemoeller

First, they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me

*************************************************************************************************

Project 2026/2028

This is Chapter 6 of Project 2026/2028 which outlines what I am looking for in candidates who want my vote in 2026, 2028 and all dates thereafter. Today’s chapter focuses on access to healthcare. As with the previous five chapters, the following is a combination of my words and Chat GPT.

The candidates who want my vote must be committed to making sure all U.S. citizens and their immediate families have readily available access to healthcare which includes the following:

• · Primary Care

• · Hospital Care

• · Preventive Care

• · Emergency and Urgent Care

• · Tests and procedure

• · Immunizations

• · Birth control for males and females, equally

• · Prenatal and postnatal care

• · Surgical care

• · Mental healthcare, including mild, moderate and acute

• · Pharmaceutical care

• · Rehabilitation care and long-term care

The above must be available within a reasonable vicinity by automobile or public transportation.

All U.S. citizens and their immediate family members must have access to insurance coverage which can be provided by employers or government agencies. This includes Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, state and local government programs, and employer-based programs. All U.S. citizens and their immediate families will have at the minimum, the same coverage as provided to the members of Congress. All expenses will be borne by employers or government agencies. Deductibles and co-pays and cost to the insured and their families will be consistent with those of members of Congress. The candidates I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will commit to taking action to make sure the above happens.

The candidates who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize that there is a serious shortage of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurses, and most technicians. The candidates will commit to taking action to address these shortfalls.

The candidates who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize that we have a mental health crisis in our country that is caused by a shortage in psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and adequate inpatient and outpatient facilities to provide the care. The candidates will commit to taking action to address these shortfalls.

The candidates who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize the need for greater access to emergent and urgent mental health care. The candidates will recognize the medical emergency rooms and medical urgent care centers are not the place for people in the middle of a mental health crisis. The candidates I vote for will recognize that asking a person in the middle of a mental health crisis to complete a 9-page questionnaire and waiting for four months to meet with a provider is unacceptable and inhumane. The candidates I vote for will commit to taking action to address these shortfalls.

The candidates who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize the need for insurance reform. They will recognize that the need for care should be decided between the patient and physician and not some AI formula at an office halfway across the country. There are much better ways to identify and manage medical care fraud and abuse than when the patient is in the middle of a health crisis.

The candidate will recognize that putting a sick patient and their family in a fight with insurance companies when the patient is in the middle of a health issue is unacceptable and inhumane. The patient should never be caught in the middle between what the physician thinks is necessary and what the insurance is willing to pay to keep costs down. The candidate I vote for will commit to taking action to address these issues.

The candidate who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize that race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or economic status should have no bearing on a person’s access to health care and the quality of care they receive. The candidate who I vote for in 2026 and 2028 will recognize that a person living in poverty must have the same access to care as a person living in a high-end gated community. The candidate that I vote for will commit to taking action to make sure this is true.

******************************************************************************************************

Orchid of the Day: Jennifer Rubin, see above

Quote of the Day: One more time by Martin Niemoeller, see above

Onion of the Day: The Michigan Economic Development Corporation. Members of the board in charge of Michigan’s billion-dollar economic development strategy skipped filing just over half of their required annual conflict of interest certification documents from 2019 to 2022.

The conflict of interest omissions show how the board — all gubernatorial appointees charged with overall management of the MEDC — failed for years to follow their own internal rules when it came to acknowledging the expectation of avoiding “the appearance of impropriety.”

Question of the Day: Are you ready for some football? The NFL regular season starts on Thursday. The Lions visit the Packers at 4:15 on Sunday.

Lyrics of the Day: When you were a child, you were treated kind
But you were never brought up right. You were always spoiled with a thousand toys, but still you cried at night.

Your mother who neglected you owes a million dollar tax and your fathers still perfecting ways of making sealing wax.

If you think you know the song and the artist, send me your answer in the comments section of the blog.

Answer to Lyrics of the Day for September 1, 2025: The Boxer by Simon and Garfunkel

Video of the Day: When Phil Collins starts playing the drums halfway through this performance it is magical. The transition is genius.

Feel free to share my blog with others. To receive the blog in your email, please use the subscribe button or send an email to me at thomasdbiggs@gmail.com and I will start the process for you.