Those who’ve compared Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler are dangerously irresponsible. The latter has been loudly labeled a menace by opposition, compared to a tyrant for, one example, issuing so many executive orders. For using this power, he’s been accused of dictatorial leanings. Of course, if you look at history rationally, you’ll understand there hasn’t been a two-term President since the 1800s who made fewer executive orders. When politics cause some to refer to basically decent people as Nazis, it behooves the rest of us to stand up to such slanders. In such cases, journalists and Supreme Court Justices, as much as any of us, should lead the way in refusing partisanship. 

But what if someone like Donald Trump, at the very least an American Berlusconi and perhaps a Mussolini, is angling for the White House? What if the fascism is very real and the accusations of autocracy not slanders? Isn’t it the responsibility of all Americans to stand up to the madness, regardless of their job titles? Some believe so, while others think a fealty to the usual rules, even in a time of grave threat, is the bigger victory for democracy. My guess is someday Ruth Bader Ginsburg will look back fondly on her Trump criticism despite the scolding she took from editorial writers on both sides of the aisle.

From Jim Rutenberg at the New York Times:

If you’re a working journalist and you believe that Donald J. Trump is a demagogue playing to the nation’s worst racist and nationalistic tendencies, that he cozies up to anti-American dictators and that he would be dangerous with control of the United States nuclear codes, how the heck are you supposed to cover him?

Because if you believe all of those things, you have to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career. If you view a Trump presidency as something that’s potentially dangerous, then your reporting is going to reflect that. You would move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional. That’s uncomfortable and uncharted territory for every mainstream, nonopinion journalist I’ve ever known, and by normal standards, untenable.

But the question that everyone is grappling with is: Do normal standards apply? And if they don’t, what should take their place?•