Where is the 'moral majority' when we need them?

This week's added political and cultural craziness featured the president calling for the deaths of six members of congress, all military or CIA veterans, due to their social media video that points out the fact that illegal orders should not be obeyed.

I took a quick look at both the Washington Post and New York Times websites and found... nothing much. Perhaps at this point the editors assume their readers no longer consider outrageous threats from the Trump Cult to be news. 

There has been serious coverage of the "extralegal" murders of over 60 people on what the administration calls smuggling boats in international waters by the U.S. I would guess that those continuing murders/assassinations prompted the video, since there is a very good chance that courts will eventually find those murders to be illegal.

I have not seen any coverage of the military members who have carried out the orders to blow up the boats, but assume they are mostly drone operators who might be anywhere from Kansas to a warship in the Caribbean. And the state of mind of the operators, whose actions are indistinguishable from playing a video game? 

"I was just following orders."

That turned out to NOT be a very good excuse for Nazi soldiers during post-WWII trials. Many of them were hanged or imprisoned for long stretches. 

I occasionally try to imagine what various National Guardsmen and active duty military are thinking as they are deployed within the U.S. without convincing evidence for their presence in various cities. I also try to imagine the state of mind of ICE agents, ordered to use pretty much any means necessary to accost, arrest, and detain suspected undocumented people, often women and children.

They are all just following orders, of course, and most of them would suffer fines or firing or imprisonment if they defied their orders. 

Trying to translate how Republican politicians and White House operatives react to the video is both easier to imagine and more appalling. The Trump response is to leave out the word "illegal" in their responses and counterattacks, and that is clearly what most of us would term "lying." 

Here's the thing: when people can simply place the original video on a screen and, for example, the Press Secretary simply misquote what was clearly stated, and someone turn that into an argument... well, it is an insult to the citizens of the country.

I am convinced that the president is in the throes of dementia, adding to his egomania and hunger for power. Comparing the way the press went after Biden, who also displayed signs of dementia but without the narcissism is maddening. 

The media have lots the ability to hold the bully to account, and that saddens me. Holding the powerful accountable should be one of the main purposes of a free press. Most media are opting to avoid the facts and the implications of a crazy person in charge.

The young people of America are watching and absorbing all this.