The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!"

Over 2000 years ago, Aesop wrote a fable about a boy, who tasked with guarding some sheep, continually alarmed the citizens by crying "wolf!" when there was no wolf. After a time of this falsity, the townspeople came to disregard the boy's cries. Then the wolf really did come, nobody believed it, and the wolf ate the sheep.

Most of us heard some version of this when growing up. It is pertinent now because much the same is occurring with our media.

The First Amendment protects freedom of the press because it was believed, correctly, at the time that a free and independent press was necessary to help guard our freedoms from those in government who would infringe upon them.

Ever since Donald Trump got the Republican nomination, the mainstream media has done everything it could to discredit and destroy him.

They have exaggerated, lied, invented stories, and falsely reported other stories. There has been a constant drumbeat of this from the entire spectrum of the media. If anything could be reported that would harm Trump or his supporters it has been done.

They even invented the term "fake news" to discredit sites which favored Trump. This apparently has backfired to some extent.

One can expect this to continue as long as Trump is President..

The Federalist recently ran a story about "16 Fake News Stories Reporter Have Run Since Trump Was Elected." This story only touches upon the tip of the iceberg.

Over the years, the media has remained free, but not independent. It is almost entirely owned or controlled by left wing establishment elites who almost exclusively support the Democratic Party. The result has been a lot of fake news, and failure to cover news that might be favorable to Trump.

The people are no longer fooled. A poll by Emerson College recently found that 49% of those polled viewed Trump as truthful, while 53% find the media untruthful. Last September, the Gallup Organization reported: "Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low." The poll found that only 32% of Americans trust the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly." This was the lowest in Gallup's history, and probably explains why the media effort to defeat Trump failed.

The knowledge of the corrupt media by the public leaves us in much the same quandary as the townspeople in Aesop's Fable. There is no longer any trust.

So who is going to help guard our freedoms now?

Donald Trump was elected while violating all of the old political rules in terms of tactics and strategy. He came out of the blue with a message that resonated with a lot of people in the great center (politically and geographically) of the country and won the Electoral Vote, though not the popular vote.

Many of his proposed policies are controversial

In addition, Trump may be a successful businessman, but he has absolutely no experience in governing. Running a government is far different that running a business. It is as much about leading as demanding, and Mr. Trump is unproven to say the least.

He will certainly make mistakes.

Unfortunately, there is nobody believable to call him on it. The Democrats, of course, are rabidly partisan. And with the constant crying of "wolf" by the media, there is no one left to guard the sheep.

The Trump Phenomenon-----The Conversationalist

In my 58 year experience in politics, I have found that one thing that is learned by practicing politicians is to be careful and precise in the language used in a campaign. If one does not, then the candidate leaves oneself open to misconstruction of what is said. And opponents will leap at the opportunity.

The prior two posts talk about how Donald Trump has broken all of the rules of politics, and yet he has emerged as the nominee of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. Given the circumstances, that is an amazing feat for someone who is clearly a novice at retail politics.

Once he secured the nomination, he needed to pivot a bit away from the style of campaign he had been running. During the primaries, the media really gave him a lot of exposure that other Republican candidates didn't get. The reason, of course, is that the media is almost entirely Democratic, and they viewed Trump as the easiest for their candidate to beat.

Prior to the nomination, Trump's approach to the campaign was more conversational than a prepared group of talking points. When he spoke, it was right off the top of his head. He talked more like he was having a conversation at a cocktail party (after a couple of hours of drinking). His statements were broad and imprecise. He got away with it because the press let him.

Trump's big mistake has been not realizing that the minute he got the nomination, the press would turn on him with great vigor. He should have seen it coming, but he clearly did not.

Instead of turning his attention toward Hillary and Obama, the morning after he attacked Ted Cruz. Then he gets involved with criticizing the Khans.

He has not seen yet that he must have some discipline over his mouth or let the media destroy him. They will happily do so, and are proceeding with that as I write.

Every undisciplined thing he says will be parsed, misconstrued, and misquoted by almost every media outlet in the world.

Get smart, Mr. Trump. Put a governor on your mouth. Get on message and stay there. Let petty stuff go. You are on the big stage now. Act like it, or you will make Hillary Clinton the next President of the United States.