Enemy of the People

“I didn’t say the media is the enemy—I said the ‘fake media’,” Trump told Breitbart in an exclusive interview on Monday.

“There’s a difference. The fake media is the opposition party. The fake media is the enemy of the American people. There’s tremendous fake media out there. Tremendous fake stories. The problem is the people that aren’t involved in the story don’t know that.”

[...]

“I don’t want to comment on any specific deal, but I do believe there has to be competition in the marketplace and maybe even more so with the media because it would be awfully bad after years if we ended up having one voice out there. You have to have competition in the marketplace and you have to have competition among the media,” the president said.

  RT

Which is why he barred several organizations from a press briefing?

He spoke of his intent to “increase military spending significantly” to soon “have the finest military that the United States has ever had by far.”

Trump also once again stressed the need to put up the wall on the border with Mexico, which he said is already ahead of schedule.

“We’re going to have a wall and it will be a great wall and it will stop the drugs from pouring in and destroying our youth.

Sure, because the only way to get from Mexico to the US is over land. Jesus Christ.

Why do we need significantly increased military spending if he's going to stop "racing to topple foreign regimes"?

Back to the media:  the problem with saying he only means the "fake news" is the enemy of the people is that he labels pretty much any organization that covers him negatively as fake news, including the New York Times.

"A few days ago I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are — they are the enemy of the people," Trump told the annual Conservative Political Action Conference.

While praising some reporters as honest, and pledging fealty to the First Amendment, Trump claimed that "the fake news media doesn't tell the truth." He said reporters should not be allowed to use anonymous sources, and "we're going to do something about it."

The president did not elaborate on what that "something" might be, beyond general criticism.

[...]

Less than two hours before Trump criticized the use of anonymous sources and said all sources should be named, an administration official provided a briefing on condition he not be identified.

[...]

In assailing anonymous sources and so-called "fake news," Trump discussed specific stories and news organizations in general terms, at one point describing CNN as the "Clinton News Network."

  USA Today

By using the phrase ["enemy of the people"] and placing himself in such infamous company [as Lenin, Stalin or Mao Zedong], at least in his choice of vocabulary to attack his critics, Mr. Trump has demonstrated, [Nina Khrushcheva, the great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev] said, that the language of “autocracy, of state nationalism is always the same regardless of the country, and no nation is exempt.” She added that, in all likelihood, Mr. Trump had not read Lenin, Stalin or Mao Zedong, but the “formulas of insult, humiliation, domination, branding, enemy-forming and name calling are always the same.”

[...]

The phrase was too toxic even for [Mr.] Khrushchev, a war-hardened veteran communist not known for squeamishness. As leader of the Soviet Union, he demanded an end to the use of the term “enemy of the people” because “it eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight.”

[...]

“In essence, it was a label that meant death. It meant you were subhuman and entirely expendable,” said Mitchell A. Orenstein, professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is the connotation for anyone who lived in the Soviet Union or knows anything about the Soviet Union..."

[...]

“Politicians normally use phrases that resonate with their own people,” [Philip Short, a British author who has written biographies of Mao and Cambodia’s genocidal leader Pol Pot] said. “Mao and Pol Pot did not just regurgitate Stalinist terms. What is extraordinary about Trump is that he has taken up a Stalinist phrase that is entirely alien to American political culture.”

  NYT

It will be ours now. Whether it results in Stalinist punishments remains to be seen.

Wittingly or not, he continues to give people ammunition for claiming he's in league with the Russians.  Big league.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.