Robert Reich: How you can stop Trump’s lie machine

It’s time for all of us to take action and defend the truth

Published September 8, 2018 4:00AM (EDT)

 (Getty/Mandel Ngan)
(Getty/Mandel Ngan)

This originally appeared on Robert Reich's blog.

Trump is ramping up his lies through his three amplifiers: Fox News, his rallies, and his Twitter account.

His lies aren’t subject to the filters traditionally applied to presidential statements, because Trump doesn’t respond to questions from the mainstream press. He doesn’t meet in public with anyone who disagrees with him, and he shuns experts.

This means his lies go out to millions of Americans, unfiltered. So what can you do?

1. First, boycott Fox News advertisers. Many of Trump’s lies originate with Fox News; Fox News amplifies the ones that originate with Trump. Trump has even appointed Bill Shine, the former number two at Fox News, as his deputy chief of staff for communications.So you can vote with your wallet and starve the beast.

2. Second, stop his rallies from becoming free propaganda events rebroadcast by most TV and radio outlets. If Trump and his enablers hold a rally in your community, write a letter or op-ed to your local newspapers calling out his lies and outlining why you oppose his agenda.

3. Third, his tweets, also brimming with lies, go out to over 50 million Americans each day. You can write Twitter and tell it to stop enabling those lies. Twitter defines its mission as providing a “healthy public conversation.Let them know that demagoguery isn’t healthy.

No democracy can function under a continuous bombardment of unmediated lies.

We’re not going to get Trump to stop lying but we can at least limit his ability to amplify those lies. It’s time for all of us to take action and defend the truth. Now.


By Robert Reich

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the ten most effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 15 books, including the best sellers "Aftershock", "The Work of Nations," and"Beyond Outrage," and, his most recent, "The Common Good." He is also a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, chairman of Common Cause, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of the award-winning documentary, "Inequality For All." He's also co-creator of the Netflix original documentary "Saving Capitalism."

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