Joeph Sabino Mistick: News of the day in an upside-down world

In the Nov. 20 New York Times, the top three “Most Read Stories” carried the following headlines: “In Outburst, Trump Accuses Democrats of Sedition Over Video to Military”; “Trump Calling Reporter ‘Piggy’ Was ‘Frankness,’ White House Says”; “Coast Guard Says Swastika and Noose Displays Are No Longer Hate Incidents.”

If those are the top stories of the day, I began to wonder how the world has turned so upside down and what it will take to turn it right side up again. One cannot help but think that the real danger is that headlines like these will become normal.

President Trump’s response to a video posted by six Democratic members of Congress — all military or intelligence veterans — was the top story. According to Trump, the great sin of these American heroes was reminding current troops that their oath is to the Constitution and that, “No one has to carry out orders that violate the law or our Constitution.”

Trump called the veteran’s message “seditious” and “punishable by DEATH.” Maybe few Americans are surprised by this, because Trump has sanctioned law-breaking before by pardoning nearly 1,600 rioters who attacked the Capitol, even those who violently attacked police officers or had been convicted of other violent crimes.

Sen. Mark Kelly, former Navy officer and astronaut, told The Atlantic, “We basically said ‘Follow the law.’ And he said, ‘Kill them.’”

The second most read story focused on Trump’s response to a woman reporter who asked him a question about his former friend Jeffrey Epstein. “Quiet, Piggy,” Trump said. Some might find that insulting, disrespectful and unpresidential, but that’s how he talks, and for that he will be remembered.

On a long ago November day, President Abraham Lincoln set the bar for presidential statements pretty high. Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address inspired the world in 271 words at the dedication of what is now the Gettysburg National Cemetery. With no social media and no 24-hour news cycles, Lincoln spoke for two minutes before 15,000 people to honor the 3,000 Union soldiers who died in the Civil War’s deadliest battle.

These were his opening words: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” For that he is still remembered.

The third story involved a U.S. Coast Guard decision to declassify swastikas as hate symbols and reclassify them as “potentially divisive” and subject to a generic anti-harassment policy. The Department of Homeland Security at first blasted the report as “fake news,” but the Coast Guard quickly returned to the old policy that uses the word “hate.”

The timing of the proposed change was especially shocking because other November news stories had just reported on the anniversary of the 1938 Night of Broken Glass — Kristallnacht — when swastika-wearing Nazis arrested 30,000 Jewish men and destroyed synagogues and Jewish businesses. It was a preview of the Holocaust.

All three of these “Most Read Stories” would have been unbelievable not long ago, but they are standard fare for now. And even though Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address followed a great military battle, his civic prayer for our nation still rings true: “… that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”