Grumpy Trumpy isn't in the holiday spirit: "Donald Trump has become the president who stole Christmas after canceling the annual festive party for the White House press. The decades-old tradition would see reporters and the president put aside their differences for one night for a lavish party that would see spouses and family invited to drink and be merry. ...One of the main events of the parties was picture-taking sessions in which the president and first lady would pose with guests in front of a Christmas tree, with the White House sending out the photos."
Last year, Trump begrudgingly held the party, but refused to pose for any pictures. This year, according to a Fox News report, it's canceled altogether.
To be frank, the White House holiday party for the press is one of a number of examples of the problematic coziness of the Beltway press with the politicians they are meant to be holding accountable. Pix with the prez at Crimbo is access journalism at its worst.
The president shouldn't even have the need to cancel the party, because journalists should be boycotting any social engagements with a regime that is waging war on the free press, undermining trust in public institutions, and inventing their own "alternative facts" to foment informational chaos.
However, irrespective of the fact that this event should never have existed in the first place and should find no self-respecting journalist wanting to attend anyway, the fact that Donald Trump is simply canceling it is evidence of his escalating hostility toward the free press, and that is deeply troubling.
He does not want to be held accountable, and he cannot bear to mingle with the people tasked with doing it. Further, he wants them to feel unwelcome, and that is nothing a president should ever be communicating to the press — nor to the public about the press.
This is the behavior of authoritarians, and it should not be dismissed with the increasingly common shrug because "that's just Trump."
I certainly hope this latest insult to the press will finally be the thing that makes them reconsider just how chummy they want to be with the Trump Regime.
But it probably won't.
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