More than 30 years ago, a column appeared in a local weekly newspaper entitled "How Much Is Enough?" I began the piece with words attributed to Jesus from Matthew 19:24: "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." The citation resulted in a death threat from the teller at the drive-up window of my local bank.
Ten years later, writing now for two community newspapers, my columns apparently ran afoul of some Moscow business owners who threatened my publisher and old friend with the cancellation of display advertising if I were allowed to continue to write. The publisher, in response, eliminated all political columns for her two papers rather than yield to their demands that she single me out.
With Donald Trump’s regaining the levers of power, I find myself taking him at his word when he threatens to use the military under his command to arrest and imprison the most vocal among his critics. When he promises to shut down major networks because their reporting of the news isn't to his liking, I have to take those threats seriously as well.
It is with these thoughts in mind that I have reached a difficult decision. This will be my final column with the Daily News. Rather than subject myself, my family or the publishers to a very real threat of government intimidation or worse, I am taking matters into my own hands. I won't be bullied.
As readers of this column may recall, it was during the build-up to the Iraq war that I confided to a pair of old friends that, if I began writing for print again, my name would end up in a file somewhere in Washington, D.C. Big Al replied, "If you don't write because you're afraid of what they'll do, they've already won." I wrote.
Those were far, far different times. Bush’s White House operated within the rules of the game and I had no doubt that my constitutional rights to free expression would find protection in the court system. Today, the highest court in the land has given the Donald a green light to commit criminal acts with impunity as long as they are "official acts." Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, would have admired that language.
Given the enormous power of the modern presidency and, suddenly stripped of the protection previously afforded by an independent judiciary, I have little desire to fight a battle I am certain to lose. Twenty years ago, in my mid-50s, I might have risen to the challenge. Younger then, single, and my two daughters well on their way. Yeah, even Trump’s goons wouldn’t have stayed my resolve to see my words in print.
This is not an easy decision by any means. The publishers of the Daily News, Butch Alford and his son Nathan Alford, are both wonderful guys and each is a dedicated professional. Working with Craig Staszkow and Matt Baney as editors has also been a very good ride. But, as I explained to Katherine this afternoon, one of the principle reasons for writing columns has been the hope that careful research combined with hard-hitting questions might cause readers to stop and think in unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable ways.
Last week's results show me that any further effort on my part would be fruitless. Ours has become a land even more savage than our blood-soaked history of exploitation and brutality might make us think.
Adolf Hitler didn't create a German consciousness which history revealed was only too ready for fascism. The beast lay dormant for centuries and was only unleashed by the Nazi dictator. In the same way, Trump set free the ugliness, the race hatred and misogyny endemic in our toxic culture and rode that demon to another term in office.
I sincerely hope that the long arm of Homeland Security under Donald’s direction will be far too busy breaking the backs of all those Eastern "enemies within," those purveyors of "fake news" like the New York Times and Washington Post to bother with what goes on in podunk Moscow or Pullman. As a student of the far reach of the Gestapo in those long-ago, pre-computer days, I worry.
If you thought that access to reliable news reporting was tough before, welcome to the Dark Ages. Good luck everyone.
McGehee, a lifelong activist, settled here in 1973 and lives in Palouse with his wife, Katherine. His work life has varied from bartender to university instructor to wrecking yard owner.
