> Also, his approach to the issue has long
been used by fascists and authoritarians.

Quite generally that argument is not very
solid: For a simple but extreme
refutation, no doubt "fascists and
authoritarians" breathe air, drink water,
walk, talk, write, read, etc. also.

If Trump is being, or trying to be, a
fascist or an authoritarian, then,
sure, we should know that.

I very much liked the OP: I've long
thought of all the criticisms in the OP,
more or less independently, and am glad to
see that the "press" and/or media are
much the same as in Jefferson's time
because that is some evidence that what I
long thought has been correct -- e.g., I'm
not the only one saying that the press
pumps out too much sewage.

I had seen that negative attitudes toward
the press were clear in a 1930's Andy
Hardy movie; IIRC Mark Twain had some such
comments; but the Jefferson quote suggests
that the objectionable aspects of the
press I, etc. have seen go way back at
least to Jefferson: From this we suspect
that the press has their techniques and
that these have not changed in 200+ years
and, thus, might be solidly based on
something or other. Again, I like the
evidence that I'm not alone in negative
attitudes toward too much of the press.

Another description of the press was from
a college English professor my older
brother had: That professor claimed that
the press used the techniques of formula
fiction -- a case can be made for that.

From the Trump rally in Florida yesterday,
I see a coincidence (different things the
same in time and, thus, possibly with a
common cause): (1) The First Lady of the
US made what might be regarded as her
first appearance as First Lady. (2) The
First Lady recently won a libel law suit
brought against a person associated with
the press who had made vile comments about
her. (3) Trump mentioned the Jefferson
statement as if it was a way to tell the
First Lady that vile press behavior was
not unique to her or the Trump
Administration but went back at least to
Jefferson. (4) The First Lady started her
speech with the Lord's Prayer as it she
had found that helpful in her reaction to
the vile libel.

I have to guess that nearly all US
citizens would be outraged at the vile
libel against the First Lady and pleased
if Jefferson's statement, the Lord's
Prayer, her husband's affectionate
support, etc. helped her -- I was.

On "fascists and authoritarians", during
the campaign Trump was attacked with,
apparently, about all the possibly
somewhat damaging vile accusations that
could be uttered. We all heard a lot of
the accusations that were common --
sexist, racist, misogynist, xenophobic,
Islamophobic, fascist, bully,
authoritarian and more. When I heard
those, I looked right away, immediately
following the accusations, for the
supporting evidence or at least references
to such evidence. I never saw solid
versions of any such evidence.

E.g., at

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2596017

is

Eddie Scarry (@eScarry), "11 New York
Times that Trump was a 'racist',"
Washington Examiner, 7/10/16 12:01 AM,
at

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2596017

with, e.g.,

1. "A nativist, sexist, arguably fascist
and racist demagogue who twists the truth
is the front-runner in the race to become
the Republican Party's presidential
nominee..." — Liberal columnist Charles
Blow, March 3.

that is, such an accusation but
(apparently) without solid evidence.

In contrast, eventually I did see

Jeffrey Lord, "When Trump Fought the
Racists", The American Spectator,
November 13, 2015, 9:00 am, at

http://spectator.org/64643_when-trump-fought-racists/

where apparently Trump worked hard,
including with a law suit, to stop the
near universal racism of clubs in Palm
Beach.

Many people in the US, no doubt nearly
everyone at HN, is really good at
considering solid evidence. We commonly
see high respect for such evidence in
physical science, medical science,
computer science, engineering, law, a lot
in finance, etc.

E.g., we know from freshman physics that F
= ma, from basic electricity and magnetism
that I = E/R, from computer science that
heap sort runs, for positive integer n and
n records to be sorted, in both worst case
and expected time O( n ln(n) ), from
mathematics that, given a positive integer
n, the set of real numbers R, a subset C
of R^n closed in the usual topology of
R^n, there exists a function f: R^n --> R
so that f is 0 on C, positive otherwise,
and infinitely differentiable (we have a
solid proof, and there is no sense in
saying otherwise).

Well, we should attempt also to have solid
evidence in evaluating our candidate and
actual political leaders.

No doubt nearly all of us have seen the
disasters of fascists, e.g., Hitler, and
authoritarians, e.g., Stalin, Mao, and Pol
Pot, and want no such disasters here in the
US.

Well, we can guess that the US Founding
Fathers also saw the dangers of
authoritarians and designed the US
Constitution to protect the US from such.

Recently for Trump, he wrote an executive
order (EO) temporarily blocking
immigration from seven countries
identified by the Obama Administration as
so deep into civil war and/or chaos that
vetting people from those countries was
impossible. Soon a US judge issued a
temporary restraining order (TRO) on the
Trump EO.

Apparently the Trump EO was based at least
in part on section (f) of "8 U.S. Code §
1182 - Inadmissible aliens" as at

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/8/1182

with:

> (f) Suspension of entry or imposition of
restrictions by President

> Whenever the President finds that the
entry of any aliens or of any class of
aliens into the United States would be
detrimental to the interests of the United
States, he may by proclamation, and for
such period as he shall deem necessary,
suspend the entry of all aliens or any
class of aliens as immigrants or
nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of
aliens any restrictions he may deem to be
appropriate ....

Okay, so, here, at least first cut, it
appears that the Trump EO was legal.

Still, a judge issued a TRO. Then the
appeals court of the US 9th Circuit upheld
the TRO.

So, what did Trump do? He argued against
the courts but did obey the courts. An
authoritarian might have asked "How many
tanks and airplanes does the court
command?", told the court "try to make
me", sent troops to lock up the judges, or
some such.

So, net, Trump did respect the judicial
branch.

So, on this issue, it appears that Trump
did not act like an authoritarian.

More generally, I'm short on solid
evidence that Trump is a fascist or
authoritarian or is racist, sexist,
misogynist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, a
bully, etc.

Instead, it appears that during the
campaign and since, some Trump opponents
and some in the press, much as in the
Jefferson statement, just tossed out
whatever vile accusations they could think
of and omitted any solid evidence.

How could many people come to believe vile
accusations or just lies without solid
evidence?

With some irony, as maybe we could see
from some fascists such as Paul Joseph
Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda of
Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, if a lie
is repeated often enough from enough
sources, then, even without solid
evidence, the lie will be widely believed.

Also we can expect from some aspects of
human psychology, e.g., E. Fromm, The Art
of Loving, people tend to be insecure, in
response seek membership in groups, and,
then, adopt the norms and beliefs of the
groups they join. Here they can come to
believe or at least repeat lies simply
from belonging to a group that wants to
repeat the lies and without solid
evidence.