“All Ministers … who were Oppressors, or intended to be Oppressors, have been loud in their Complaints against Freedom of Speech, and the License of the Press; and always restrained, or endeavored to restrain, both.”

If ever there were two events that showed how far the U.S. has regressed in resolving the continuing problem of racism and in promoting the constitutional free press that the founders thought to be vital to a free country, it was Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Phoenix last month and his bow to overt racists and hate groups in Charlottesville, Va., just days earlier.

In Phoenix, where he retreated in August to a campaign-style rally to his dwindling, but adoring base, he lashed out at “the press” for at least 20 minutes for being “fake news” and for misrepresenting his statement on the rally in Charlottesville, Va., just days earlier. In a diatribe that lasted, in total, for 77 minutes, he pulled out a paper that purportedly was a copy of what he had said in the wake of deaths that occurred as a result of the Charlottesville rally of neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and other assorted white supremacists.

He read from the sheet and conveniently left out the part where he said the violence was the fault of “many sides…many sides.” He said on Aug. 15 that there were “people that were very fine people on both sides.” Among the racists’ gathered, he speculated, were those who were only there to protect their history of the Confederacy. So, as only Trump can twist things, he saw moral equivalency in both sides, even though the anti-racist demonstrators were there to uphold what the U.S. supposedly stands for, while the Nazis, KKK, and others in their gang were there to promote racism, hatred, and divisions, as have existed since the end of the Civil War.

What has happened in the few weeks since is that the bulk of his supporters have been emboldened to express those same sentiments: There were “fine people” on both sides. Trump’s attitude precariously hangs the blade of racism over the nation’s neck. So many of them believe that there could be “good Nazis” or “good” members of the KKK, or that the people protesting the removal of a statue was protection against a strike at the heart of their comforting recollection of the slave era (“slavery had its positive aspects”) and the valor of those slaughtered on the Civil War battlefields.

Never one to take the blame for any act or to apologize for anything, no matter how vile, Trump in Phoenix doubled down on his attack on the nation’s free press. His objective over the past few years has been to delegitimize the free press of the U.S., an institution that is enshrined in the nation’s hallowed Bill of Rights. No other institution shares such an honor. The American press in 2017 can be faulted for many failures and shortcomings, but it remains a vital part of what remains of our democracy. That shard of democracy is vital and it needs to stand.

Trump has consistently taken the side of those who would trash the rule of law and promote values that are clearly in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Although he has taken little note of two disparate cases, he surely would take the side of one: The Bundy thugs, who trained semi-automatic weapons at federal agents, as they tried in 2014 to round up Cliven Bundy’s cattle, which the rancher had grazed on federal land in Nevada for decades without paying any grazing fees. These were people, militia members and others, who were willing to shoot U.S. government agents to keep them from carrying out their duties and bring Bundy into compliance with the law. In Trump’s America, some of them were acquitted recently of wrongdoing.

In another instance, a young journalist was arrested and charged with riot and other crimes, because he was in a protesting crowd at Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C. Aaron Cantu, if convicted could face up to 75 years in prison. His action as a reporter made him a target of fearful law enforcement and the court system, because of his work and the most powerful weapon that he carried was a pen and pad or video camera. The disparity in treatment is stark. If the militia at the Bundy ranch a few years ago had been of color, there would not have been any need for the niceties of charges and trials. There would have been mass police, if not military, action to “take them out.”

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press argued that the government should dismiss the charges, since similar charges lodged against other journalists had their charges dismissed after the inauguration. Cantu is working as a staff writer at the Santa Fe Reporter (New Mexico). His writing has appeared in national publications and, as he writes for the Santa Fe paper he has hanging over his head a status hearing for his case next month and a jury trial is expected to begin in October 2018.

Since he began his run for the presidency, Trump has decried the press as “fake news,” and never lets an opportunity pass in which he can call out a news outlet or a reporter by name, in public, as a purveyor of false information. He has been relentless in in his attempt to delegitimize the press and his followers believe him. It could be that he is just trying to cover his own tracks in the prevarication department. The Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star recently compiled in detail 414 “falsehoods” that Trump told in his first six months in office. The New York Times also compiled such a list.

Since there is seemingly no curb on the lies and disinformation that comes from Trump, himself, it is necessary to consider that he is attempting to delegitimize government, in general, as his principal advisor, recently departed, Steve Bannon, has proclaimed is necessary. That is, he and Trump are aiming for the destruction or “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Since that deconstruction is still in progress, it is as hard to define it as it is to get inside the minds of either Trump or his mentor Bannon. At its heart, however, it involves the diminution, if not destruction, of a government that makes the First and Fourteenth Amendments work, when they work at all. It also involves the crippling or destruction of the rule of law.

Although Trump engages in one disaster after another on a daily basis, one of his recent acts will stand out for a very long time: His outrageous pardon of the racist sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, Joe Arpaio. After 24 years of violating the civil rights of Mexican-Americans and others, in blatant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, he refused to stop, even after a court ordered him to stop racial profiling in his jurisdiction.

When he continued, he was held in contempt of court and found guilty of a misdemeanor and was awaiting sentencing. And, that’s not to consider what the sheriff has cost the taxpayers of his county. The Phoenix New Times reported on Aug. 25, 2017: “By 2015, his fondness for racial profiling had cost the county more than $44 million. On top of, you know, ruining lives.” Trump’s pardon displayed for the world to see his contempt for the rule of law (Arpaio wasn’t even sentenced and has never uttered a word of remorse for violating the constitutional rights of thousands), and it indicated that the president would be quite comfortable if the bigoted sheriff’s description of his jail as “a concentration camp” were expanded to the rest of the country.

Never mind Trump’s lack of even a rudimentary understanding of how the U.S. government works and that it is likely the reason that he “can’t get anything done,” he may not want to understand. After all, it doesn’t take much understanding to destroy something.