These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. 

—Thomas Paine, Dec. 23, 1776

Covering politics for so long, I have learned, not without stumbling a time or two, to keep perspective. A sense of humor has been essential, too.

But while the stakes may not be what they were nearly six months after the Declaration of Independence was signed — or so we can hope — what is happening now in this country should be disturbing to anyone paying attention and seeing without partisan blinders. I have been fretting about this for some time — my friends have gently mocked me as a worry wart for decades — along with ruminating about the future of the business I have dedicated my life to for nearly four decades.

All of this crystallized in my mind last week with what is being called “Signalgate” and with the alas-not-surprising news that President Donald Trump has installed vengeful, unhinged partisan Sigal Chattah as Nevada’s interim U.S. attorney. The deny-and-lie response to Signalgate and the banal treatment of the nightmarish Chattah appointment show that my worrywartism and that of others may not be the disease but ultimately the cure.

I agree with David Remnick, who recently wrote:

The threat of autocracy advances each day under Donald Trump, and it is a process that hides in plain sight. Some will choose to deny it, to domesticate it, to treat the abnormal as mere politics, to wish it all away in the spirit of “this too shall pass.” But the threat is real and for all to see. No encryption can conceal it.

We cannot let it pass, but we must also rise to the occasion, let our worry galvanize us to action and not be cowed into silence. More to the point, we, as journalists, have to acknowledge what is happening, try to get politicians and our readers (or viewers) to face facts and ignore the social media trolls and IRL attack dogs who seek to distract or muzzle us.

I am not making the case here for those of us in the Fourth Estate to become The Resistance. I am suggesting that our role has not changed — as watchdogs, as truth-tellers. But our methods must meet the moment, our fact-checking must be constant, our attention focused on the mission.

I am also not suggesting we should ignore what is happening on the Left, where progressive litmus tests have crippled the Democratic Party’s ability to lead, or that we should not call out abhorrent reactions such as bombing Teslas. But our job as journalists, without hyperventilation but with firm and direct language, is to illuminate what exactly is occurring and what the stakes are.

Perspective. Yes. Proportionality. Yes. Humor? Not so sure I can muster it, but I still maintain it’s essential.

We must ignore the gaslighting and confront the deluge of untruths. The attacks will be constant and vicious, the attempts to force bended knees ever-present. I am not talking about social media trolls who tell us to “cry more” or “cope,” but malefactors with power who will try to cripple us and worse.

As journalists, we have an essential role here, as Paine knew. The laptop is mightier than the masked ICEmen, even if it might not always seem so.

All of us must recognize this new reality. For too long cable news — and I have proudly appeared on shows for a long time — have played into The Validation Culture rather than trying to practice journalism, with several notable exceptions. It does the public no real service to interview people on air whom you agree with and simply … agree with them. Get uncomfortable, probe more, dig deeper.

Here at The Indy, I have occasionally struggled with my dual roles as founder and pundit, knowing how so many will caricature me and then extend that to our 8-year-old nonprofit, which I humbly say has become the gold standard for journalism in Nevada thanks to my remarkable group of reporters.

I have faced the fury of the Left (no one was more vicious a few cycles back than the Bernie Sanders cultists) and the Right (my muting button on X has gotten a workout). Some may be surprised that my favorite columnists (Remnick is one, too) are mostly on the Right or to the right of center — Jonah Goldberg, George Will, Kevin Williamson, for example. Or that the only governor who threatened to punch me out was a Democratic one and that a close ally of a Democratic governor has helped whisper obscene lies about me for almost three years. The current governor, a Republican, has agreed to be interviewed by me four times in a public venue since he was elected; the legislator I knew best in 35 years of covering Carson City was a Republican.

I say all of this not to be defensive, but to be transparent. And yet I know, shockingly, it’s true: Some people, and this is bipartisan, don’t like me. Stop the presses.

But I am not The Indy; The Indy is not me.

My reporters don’t need to agree with me. What they need to do is what they are doing: Help Nevadans make sense out of an ever-chaotic world with deeply reported, unbiased stories about important issues. Just look at our coverage the last fortnight on the impact of what is happening in D.C. on our state — they are our best-read stories, the effects on real people, not spin or stats.

Michelle Rindels and Riley Snyder run the news side of The Indy. They make the decisions on what is news for us and what is not. They don’t ask for my approval. They know the mission. I trust them. Do they ask for counsel once in a while? Sure. But they run the place, and they are as fair-minded as any two people I know.

This is how all journalistic enterprises should run. The CEO (or publisher or owner) should not interfere and should have faith in the people he or she has hired to do the job.

I began with Paine and I end with Lincoln. We are again engaged in a great civil war — the battlefield so far is not bloody but it could become so. It’s not hysteria to wonder whether the nation conceived as was ours can long endure under these current circumstances.

But I know this: If we don’t do what we are charged to do, if some of us who have the pulpit don’t speak up, I fear the worst is yet to come.