I resent that I am put in a position of having to constantly defend a President who in almost every way but one is the antithesis of the ethics template for American leadership that I have spent my professional life studying and promoting. That one virtue, and it is a crucial one: President Trump has the determination to fix problems as he sees them, and is not afraid of the conflict necessary to do it. One of those problems is the complete rot of U.S. journalism, without which a functioning democracy is nigh impossible, and the risk of totalitarianism grows nearer.

Here’s another measure by which America is doing “pretty well”: at least NPR and PBS have to earn their own money to spread their propaganda.