Editor’s note: The views expressed by guest columnists are not necessarily those of The Costa Rica Star, its advertisers, or its staff. 

By Britt Nelson

Saturday’s rally in Florida starring President Donald Trump was 100-percent unprecedented in the history of the United States of America. Never before has a sitting president harnessed public support through social media like this one. What we are all witnessing is uncharted territory. The ways and means of communicating leadership has changed.

All President Trump had to do was announce on social media that he’d be holding a rally at the Orlando-Melbourne International Airport at 5:00 p.m., and the place was full of supporters holding thousands of signs that read “Women For Trump,” “Veterans for Trump,” “Blacks For Trump,” “Cops For Trump,” and “Latinos For Trump.” It was astounding and refreshing to watch the interaction between President Trump and thousands of his supporters who were hanging on every word coming from their new president. The loudest roar of applause came when President Trump said the U.S. military is going after “radical Islamic terrorists.”

Only one month into his presidency Trump used this rally to give a new-type ‘State of the Union’ address directly to the America people bypassing mainstream media. Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain at 80 years old this long-time hero, who survived more than five-years held captive by the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War, and a former presidential candidate has called Trump a “dictator” comparing him to former German Nazi ruler Adolf Hitler on mainstream media. 

Both CNN and FOX News broadcast the rally live and in its entirety as they should have, but in the aftermath CNN and FOX News are analyzing this event in much different ways. CNN with the rest of mainstream media such as NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal — their coverage of this rally is pretty much all negative denouncing Trump’s support as “un-American” in wanting to deport illegal aliens, building the border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, and going after radical Islam.

On the other hand, FOX News is covering the joy of President Trump’s supporters in seeing their guy begin to take on the challenges he said he would take on if elected president. Their coverage is ‘fair and balanced’ much more so than the others. FOX News also covered the anti-Trump crowd that had assembled outside the airport and letting them have their say broadcast to the nation. 

Before the rally, President Trump on Friday continued his assault on mainstream media by tweeting,  “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” and “Don’t believe the main stream (fake news) media. The White House is running VERY WELL. I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it.”

In another development, U.S. House and Senate Republicans — holding local town hall meetings from coast-to-coast – are encountering extremely vocal anti-Trump protesters filling the meeting halls demanding that President Trump be removed from office and opposing his entire agenda. This is good for Republicans to see face-to-face their opposition and be forced to listen to the liberals and then make decisions in Washington based on what’s best for all American citizens.

But where are President Trump’s supporters at these town hall meetings? Well … they know when to show up and where to show up — when the boss says so — on their smart phones.

About the Author

Britt Nelson relocated to Costa Rica in 2011 from Florida, where he served as news editor for the Palatka Daily News, a newspaper owned by the New York Times Regional Newspaper Group (NYT-RNG) for 20 years.

Nelson served the NYT-RNG for 18 years in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida as a correspondent, reporter, staff writer, senior staff writer training new reporters, copy editor, page designer, editorial writer, editorial page editor and editorial board member.