Dan Rather is not sitting by idly watching Washington metaphorically burn while Donald Trump fiddles. Rather is a visual and emotional writer and he shares his views once again today on Facebook. Rather states in no uncertain terms that he has never seen a political story like Trump-Russia move at such breakneck speed, which Rather likens to a forest fire, out of control:
I have to remember to take a breath. Bam. Bam. Bam. Blockbuster developments hit the news cycle in rapid succession on an administration that many fear has been severely compromised, even while we hope it is not. Bam. Bam. Bam.
My head spins. My heart sinks. I do not know what the next moment will bring - let alone the next hour, day, week or heaven forbid month.
The latest bombshells from the last few hours rise to the level of screaming headlines worthy of a Hollywood script. President Trump apparently telling Russian officials that firing the FBI Director relieved "great pressure" on him - courtesy of the New York Times.
And then an even bigger development. "White House adviser close to Trump is a person of interest in Russia probe." Bam! From the Washington Post.
Thank God for the free press. The pressure mounts. The fantastic becomes the unbelieveable. The unbelieveable becomes the believable. The believable becomes old news. All within a matter of hours.
I have never seen a story of this nature move so fast. It reminds of a forest fire devouring dry timber. But what is burning is the very structure of our democracy. My hope is that it is such a raging inferno that even the most cynical members of Mr. Trump's party cannot ignore the flames. We are well past wondering whether the smoke suggests a fire.
Rather is totally correct that the speed at which the Trump-Russia debacle develops is beyond anything that we’ve seen come out of Washington, ever. It reminds one of an eclipse, shot in time-lapse photography, where the moon races across the sky and instantly turns black, compressing real time events into a matter of seconds. Except we live in an alternate universe since the advent of Donald Trump and the vastly accelerated celestial spectacle becomes the real-time event, in this new world. Headlines that would have lasted for days, if not weeks, back in the no-drama Obama era and before are in the historical archives by dinner time because a new and updated narrative is dominating the news cycle. This is not a time in journalism to be slow or pedantic, you will be not only left behind but crushed as the lithe and nimble carry on at a record, neck-breaking, pace.
And Trump supporters keep forging ahead as well, with their own version of the facts.The New York Times tells us how the right is spinning Trump-Russia.
In the conservative media, an alternate story line has already taken shape. In this story, Mr. Comey, an embittered and opportunistic employee whom Mr. Trump fired, is now trying to redeem himself with retroactively released — and unseen — memos of his version of events. On “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday morning, one of the hosts, Brian Kilmeade, expressed disbelief. “If you write it down, does that mean it’s true?” he asked. [Note: This was written two days ago, before James Comey was characterized as a “nut job.”]
The chief accomplice in this version of events is the media, which in the case of The Washington Post, erupted into cheers when its story on Mr. Trump’s disclosure of intelligence to the Russians broke. “WASHPOST Newsroom staff openly applauding at latest Trump hit finally clarifies how this has turned into nothing but a bloodsport!” Mr. Drudge wrote on Twitter. (A reporter for the Post had actually written on Twitter that the newsroom applauded when the story broke an online traffic record.)
“They took a huge risk, and they are deeply invested,” said Charlie Sykes, a conservative author who has been critical of Mr. Trump. And the news cycle they inhabit, he added, is only hardening their beliefs.
“These days when people say, ‘Oh, my gosh, this really looks terrible, was I possibly wrong about Trump?’ they quickly go on social media or see the shows and instantaneously find something that reinforces their opinion,” Mr. Sykes added. “And they cling to that.”
There is an Us v. Them mentality in the country and no one foments division and disharmony more than the sitting president. His recent tweet says it all. “Every day from here on out will be an uphill battle — and we need to be prepared to go into the trenches to FIGHT BACK.”
The “fighting back” is getting beyond the realm of the metaphorical and into the physical. Just in the last week we witnessed American citizens attacked outside of the Turkish embassy and other American citizens marching with torches in the streets of Charlottesvile, Virginia. America is a powder keg right now and Donald Trump and the Republican party are the box of matches. they keep fanning the flames. How fast and how far is this conflagration going to spread? Donald Trump has been compared to Caligula and Mad King George — will he go down in history as our equivalent of Nero?