https://www.spiegel.de/international/business/interview-with-washington-post-editor-martin-baron-we-had-to-be-much-more-forthright-about-trump-a-2d5b7c59-7024-4138-91bc-0cc3b54d3794

DER SPIEGEL: Trump attacked the Post frequently during his presidency. For you personally, what was the most noteworthy moment with him?

Baron: It was the first time he used the phrase “enemy of the people”. It was shocking. It’s a phrase that has obviously been used in other contexts in the worst possible way …

DER SPIEGEL: … during the Third Reich, for example, Hitler’s regime used that term to persecute political enemies.

Baron: You’re making an analogy there to what ultimately transpired in Germany, but I’m not ready to go that far just yet. It was clear that he was going to go to the extreme to demonize us. He endeavored to portray us as garbage, as scoundrels. And he has done, I have to say, a very effective job of turning people against us. That was the objective, to get his followers to ignore whatever we wrote and to view whatever we wrote as a product of the opposition. He wanted to portray us as the opposition party. He has been largely successful in achieving that. He wouldn’t stop even if it posed the risk of violence against journalists, and it has resulted in violence and threats against journalists.

My note: the even more appropriate analogy would be actually with Stalin’s purges, where not only high-ranking Party’ officials, but regular people were condemned as “enemy of the people” and either death-sentenced or banished in the Gulag. #populism

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