The Boston Globe made waves this past weekend after publishing an imaginary front page cover from a Donald Trump presidency.
The headlines were startling: “Deportations to begin,” “Markets sink as trade war looms,” “President Trump calls for tripling of ICE force; riots continue,” “US soldiers refuse orders to kill ISIS families”.
“It is easy to find historical antecedents. The rise of demagogic strongmen is an all too common phenomenon on our small planet,” read the editorial following the satirical cover.
“And what marks each of those dark episodes is a failure to fathom where a leader’s vision leads, to carry rhetoric to its logical conclusion. The satirical front page of this section attempts to do just that, to envision what America looks like with Trump in the White House.”
Naturally, Trump had a fit over the cover: “How about that stupid Boston Globe? It’s worthless, sold for a dollar. They pretended Trump is the president and they made up, the whole front page is a make-believe story, which is really no different from the whole paper…The whole thing is made up.”
Except, mass deportation has been Trump’s “immigration plan” from the start, saying all undocumented immigrants “have to go” and repeatedly praising a horrific 1954 round-up and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of immigrants to Mexico as a model.
Trump has added that he’d rely on a so-called “Deportation Force” to arrest and deport a population roughly the size of Ohio from the US within a period of two years. “President Trump calls for tripling of ICE force,” speculated the Boston Globe? That sure sounds like a “Deportation Force” to us.
The Boston Globe wasn’t making anything up — those headlines are Trump’s exact words and policies, and it’s ridiculous to pretend otherwise.
Maybe that’s why it’s so laughable that unofficial Trump surrogates Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” joined Trump in questioning why the paper’s editorial board would run with this cover.
A bigger question for Scarborough and others is, why aren’t you following the Boston Globe’s footsteps?
Not only should the paper be praised, but other journalists of integrity should follow the paper’s lead in calling out Trump’s blatant racism and bigotry.
Jorge Ramos — himself ejected from a Trump press conference in Iowa last year — noted in his recent column that “as we get closer to Election Day, we journalists must pose tougher questions and challenge Trump constantly. And we must denounce expressions of racism and sexism, wherever they originate.”
“The toxic mix of violent intimidation, hostility to criticism, and explicit scapegoating of minorities shows a political movement is taking hold in America,” the Globe editorial concluded.
“If Trump were a politician running such a campaign in a foreign country right now, the US State Department would probably be condemning him.”
Should Trump not get the Republican nomination, he’s already suggested his supporters will riot. Should he get the nomination, the history of ugly violence directed at people of color at his rallies and across America is sure to continue through November.
Donald Trump’s vision for America is dangerous, and it’s fair for all — including those in the media, like the Boston Globe has done — to call it out for what it is.
